The spoon-fed zombies in the mainstream media are losing their minds. Politico has the hard-hitting story but keep in mind these whiners, including Politico, are the same media outlets who worked in secret with DNC officials during 2016 to help elect Hillary Clinton to the presidency. So much for media ethics and alleged professionalism.
The above photo shows one of those media folks, self-described “hack” reporter Glenn Thrush who was hired by the New York Times after colluding with the DNC and Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta to derail President Donald Trump’s then-campaign.
The White House on Friday blocked a number of media outlets, including CNN and POLITICO, from an off-camera briefing with press secretary Sean Spicer, while allowing in a select group of journalists that included many conservative outlets.
The White House had earlier planned on having an on-camera gaggle with Spicer in the briefing room, but the administration later in the day changed it to a restricted off-camera gaggle in Spicer’s office.
The shift — a notable break from protocol — came as the White House is trying to contain fallout from reports that chief of staff Reince Priebus pressured the FBI to shoot down articles about frequent contact between Trump campaign officials and Russian intelligence officials.
Instead of hosting the typical briefing on camera in the briefing room — which in the first month has been regularly broadcast live on the major cable networks — the White House invited the pool, which on Friday consisted of Hearst Newspapers and CBS, into Spicer’s office, along with a select group of other outlets. Because of the presence of the pool, the information was still shared with the entire White House press corps.
In addition to CBS and Hearst, the White House invited NBC, Fox, ABC, One America News Network, The Wall Street Journal, McClatchy, Breitbart and Washington Times reporters to attend. Reporters from outlets including the BBC, CNN, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and POLITICO were not permitted.
In the past, White House press secretaries would sometimes host small gaggles with “expanded pools.” But the selective invitation of conservative outlets, some of whom have been more than overtly friendly to the Trump administration, is unprecedented.
White House Correspondents Association President Jeff Mason condemned the White House’s actions in a statement.
“The WHCA board is protesting strongly against how today’s gaggle is being handled by the White House,” Mason said. “We encourage the organizations that were allowed in to share the material with others in the press corps who were not. The board will be discussing this further with White House staff.”
White House Principal Depuy Press Secretary Sarah Sanders downplayed the controversy. “We invited the pool so everyone was represented. We decided to add a couple of additional people beyond the pool. Nothing more than that,” she said.
Reporters from The Associated Press and Time were invited to attend, but out of solidarity chose to sit the meeting out. That move garnered praise online and via the internal White House pool email list.
“Congratulations to Time and AP for not attending today’s gaggle in protest,” New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker wrote to the White House press corps email list.
Fox News anchor Bret Baier said on Twitter “a WH gaggle should be open to all credentialed orgs,” and referenced a time when CNN and the New York Times stood with Fox News when the Obama administration tried to exclude them.
Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times, one of outlets excluded on Friday, characterized the administration’s move as unprecedented.
“Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties,” he said in a statement. “We strongly protest the exclusion of The New York Times and the other news organizations. Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest.”
Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, the outlet Trump previously ripped as a “failing pile of garbage,” said the White House’s actions would not deter their reporting.
“While we strongly object to the White House’s apparent attempt to punish news outlets whose coverage it does not like, we won’t let these latest antics distract us from continuing to cover this administration fairly and aggressively,” he said.
In a statement, CNN said, “This is an unacceptable development by the Trump White House. Apparently this is how they retaliate when you report facts they don’t like. We’ll keep reporting regardless.”
The Associated Press said in a statement: “AP believes the public should have as much access to the president as possible.” —READ MORE