Trump's relationship with the media.

Josh Marshall reports that the Trump White House is already much more leaky than Obama's ever was.

Josh Marshall wrote:

The Trump White House not only leaks like crazy. It casually leaks the most intimate and humiliating details about the President - hurt feelings, ego injury, childlike behavior, self-destructive rages over tweets, media failure to credit his own grandiosity. We have simply never seen this level of leaking, with this little respect for the President's dignity or reputation, this early.

I can't imagine that this will make relations between Trump and the press any more cordial.

Leaks get him off.

Right.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/24/wh-spokesman-spicer-wont-give-evidence-to...

Maybe the piranhas will eat Ann Coulter.

Poor piranhas.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/fake-news-gateway-pundit-...

Gateway Pundit, a conservative site known for spreading hoaxes, has hit the big time under President Trump.

Michelle Kosinski ‏@MichLKosinski

The two outlets called on today in Trump's presser: Christian Broadcasting Network, and a conservative blog. 

 

 

Shepard Smith is probably the only fair and balanced anchor on Fox. (not sure that means anything) He's been on the ball a few times. Even Morning Joe is a reasonable Republican.

NDPP wrote:

Do Not Trust the Intercept or How To Burn A Source

https://t.co/WeisPljhAR

Yesterday The Intercept published a leaked five-page NSA analysis about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US elections. Its reporting outed the leaker of the NSA documents. That person, RL Winner, has now been arrested and is likely to be jailed for the rest of her life.

FBI search and arrest warrant applications unveil irresponsible behavior by the Intercept's reporters and editors which neglected all operational security trade-craft that might have prevented the revealing of the source..."

I doubt she'll be jailed for the rest of her life or anything close to that.  Meanwhile no comment on the substance of the Intercept piece?

Quote:

I doubt she'll be jailed for the rest of her life or anything close to that.  Meanwhile no comment on the substance of the Intercept piece?

I'll be curious to see how this all plays out.

If you disclose documents supporting allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. election, can you still be a "whistleblower" and a "hero"?  Or just a "dupe" and a "traitor"?  I guess we'll see.

"Top-Secret NSA Report Details Russian Hacking Effort Days Before 2016 Election"

Given the lack of "meat on the bones" with this entire leak story, it wouldn't surprise me if it was the NSA who first contacted The Intercept and provided them with the 'leak'.

A federal judge in New York ruled Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump may not legally block Twitter users because doing so violates their rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan came in response to a lawsuit filed against Trump in July by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and several Twitter users.

The First Amendment protects the right to freedom of expression.

I'm thinking those op-tative theatre people from Montreal might like this ruling. They always seemed to think that free-speech meant someone was obligated to give you a plaform.

Seriously, I'm not sure I agree with this decision. I would assume that who any tweeter decides to block is a decision between him and Twitter. But apparently the courts have a say in this as well.

I guess the argument is that being blocked by the POTUS prevents you from participating in the debate, because twitter won't allow you to respond to tweets by someone who has blocked you. But that's only on twitter, right? You can still discuss and debate someone's tweets in other venues.

https://tinyurl.com/y6udkvxv

 

I don't entirely disagree.  But I'll take counterpoint anyway, and suggest that if TheDonald can block anyone from replying to his tweet, that's a bit like, if I started a thread here on babble, I could arbitrarily block the posts of any other babblers who disagree with me.

It's true that they can go start a thread of their own, but it's not quite the same thing, particularly if people are commenting and participating on "my" thread and don't visit theirs.

Yeah, but if you(ie. Mr Magoo) wanted to ban people from your thread, and babble allowed that feature, I don't think the Canadian courts would have anything to say about it. The matter would be entirely between you and babble.

I would add the very important caveat that TheDonald is the President, and I think that as such both has a duty to listen to every U.S. citizen, and also has the Twitter following that he does specifically because he's the President.

But all elected politicians represent certain groups of people. If babble hosts a column by an NDP health minister, let's say, and she writes a column defending her party's views on abortion access, does babble forfeit the right to ban anti-choice comments from the Disqus thingie at the bottom? Because that would be violating the anti-choicers right to free speech?

 

Matt Taibbi's response to this "bold move":

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-war-on-med...

"

Trump’s war on the press has been portrayed as more of a catastrophe than it may be in reality. Being frozen out by any politician, much less one like Trump, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It may even help in the long run. (This does not excuse Trump’s behavior. Not only should the president regularly answer questions, but government agencies, in general, should be more transparent. ) 

The backdrop of Trump’s escalation with CNN (and other outlets) includes years of the hollowing out of the Freedom of Information Act, as well as a protracted effort across multiple presidencies to expand the scope of classification.

The idea of presidents freezing out individual reporters or outlets is not new; those in power just usually don’t gloat about it in the nakedly reptilian way Trump does."

"A lot of the big network types who complain about not having access now forget that alternative and/or local media has mostly always been on the outside. The non-corporate press has never been able to afford to go on most campaign trips, or attend White House junkets, or be called on in pressers.

Denied official passes and cozy lunches with Senatorial aides, legit-but-small outlets have had to find stories elsewhere, in day-to-day life. Which isn’t so bad.

The public has grown to hate the national press over the years because they see media celebrities as elite supplicants who’d rather be up there than down here. So being kicked off the Olympus may be a blessing in disguise. Let Fox reporters demean themselves with their front-row seats at the daily presidential tongue-bath. Back on the outside, in our natural adversarial role, we might finally get our mojo back."

Taibbi wrote:

The public has grown to hate the national press over the years because they see media celebrities as elite supplicants who’d rather be up there than down here.

Eh, I dunno. I've been hearing criticism of the media for years now, and I never really got the impression that it was motivated by the kind of class-antagonism that Taibbi would like to see it as. More often than not, it goes along the lines of...

Joe Blow thinks Mayor MacWidget is the greatest thing ever to happen to his city.

Joe Blow sees a news item where reporters ask Mayor MacWidget why he was seen entering a cheap motel in a red-light district with a woman who had been arrested for solicitation the night before.

Joe Blow says: WHY THE HELL CAN'T THE GODDAM NEWS MEDIA LEAVE PEOPLE ALONE FOR ONCE!!

Joe Blow switches his loyalties to another media outlet, and cheers on their reportage about the sordid private lives of the politicians who oppose MacWidget.  

 

 

VOTD - I think anger at elite media figures is real and a factor in the US presidential election and the general swing rightwards we are seeing now.   Mainstream media is losing its influence, and I agree with Taibbi that it deserves to.   Brietbart has made it's mark on this issue, there are daily stories about millionaire Hollywood moguls condescending to and patronizing 'average americans'.   

Taibbi hopes they will return to form, emulate independant media, become adversarial and proper stewards of their role.   So long as they remain massive corporations owned by even more massive corporations, with millionaire employees who can't, and don't care to relate to working class people,  I don't see how this is possible.   I'm hoping something else rises in their place.

What’s disappointing but to be expected is why are not all the media asking the same question?

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.mediaite.com/tv/brutal-cnns-brian-stelter-asks-why-does-sarah-sanders-still-have-a-job/amp/

Hilarious, if it wasn't so sad!

Thanks for this Michael.

Michael Moriarity wrote:

I found this article on Slate interesting. It examines "Fox & Friends", the morning show on Fox News, and apparently Trump's fave. The lede:

Justin Peters wrote:

It was 6:07 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 10, and the three hosts of Fox & Friends were talking football—specifically, how much better the NFL was before Colin Kaepernick went and mucked things up. Just like its most prominent viewer, Fox News’ morning show is obsessed these days with the national anthem protests that Kaepernick ignited. “Someone who knows more about football than the average bear would be former Bear coach Mike Ditka, and he has this to say about what is going on in football right now,” said a grinning Steve Doocy, before playing a clip of Ditka’s insane claim that America has been oppression-free for 100 years and that dissenters should go play football in some other country.

“And Hillary Clinton supports the players taking a knee,” noted Brian Kilmeade, raising his hands for emphasis. “By the way, what a nightmare for coaches. They need to focus on the game. Their jobs are on the line, and everyone’s divided.”

“It’s interesting, though. The people who are fighting because of the division in our country are dividing the country,” Ainsley Earhardt chimed in after some cross-talk. “Football will never be the same. I just want to turn on the TV and watch a game, you know? And eat popcorn and pizza.”

And then came the inevitable contribution from the fourth voice in Fox & Friends’ early-morning chorus: “Why is the NFL getting massive tax breaks while at the same time disrespecting our Anthem, Flag and Country? Change tax law!” tweeted President Trump. It was 6:13 a.m.