Free press isn't free under White House's onerous rules (Editorial)
Muzzling the press is chapter one in the authoritarian ruler's playbook. By the Founders' design, the president of the United States is not a king or dictator. He doesn't control the media, or get to decide which reporters are assigned to cover him.
A free press isn't free if the government imposes rules on what reporters can ask and how they must ask it. That violates the First Amendment. Period.
Banning reporters from asking follow-up questions or challenging the president's statements, under threat of taking away their access to the White House, hobbles the watchdog function of the media. White House reporters will be looking over their shoulders, calibrating the consequences, every time they ask tough questions. Meanwhile, the president will be able to dodge accountability and lie to the American people with even more impunity.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 23 2018, @10:18PM (3 children)
As near as I can tell, he is merely returning the favor. CNN badmouths the pres 24/7. If they don't have anything real, then they manufacture a reason to badmouth him. So, WTF do you expect from Trump?
It would be perfectly reasonable for CNN to publish reasoned explanations about why they disagree with this policy, or that. That is pretty much what the press' duty is. But, the incessant name calling - fascist, Nazi, etc ad nauseum? It's bullshit.
My employer installed televisions in the break room. Enough of us complained about CNN's hate propaganda that HR finally agreed to ditch CNN. Now, we get the weather channel. Nothing was lost - absolutely nothing.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 23 2018, @10:29PM (2 children)
You missed the point.
But on your mild tangent of name calling, what is your opinion of Fox news during Obama's terms?
(Score: 0, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 23 2018, @10:55PM (1 child)
Fox made itself pretty distasteful, primarily due to it's entertainment of all those citizenship conspiracies. But, Fox never went full-fucking-batshit-crazy like CNN has. They mostly stayed inside of the _plain_nucking_phutts_ perimeter. Today, CNN has left that perimeter far behind.
And, I'll reiterate for you - when CNN was new, I actually liked them. It took years for them to get to their present level of batshit crazy.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 24 2018, @03:12PM
i felt the same way about fox. it seemed like the 'big three' needed some sort of new competition to keep things interesting.
ill grant fox that fact--they have kept it interesting. i dont like their methods but i would prefer that every titan has a thorn in its side somehow. sometimes fox is a thorn, sometimes fox is the titan