Trump White House bars NYT, Politico, CNN and other news outlets from briefing


The Trump Administration's continuing war with the American journalistic community escalated today when reporters from The New York Times, CNN, Politico and other news organizations were banned from the daily briefing at the White House.

Per the Timesthis is an "unusual   breach of relations between the White House and its press corps."


Reporters from The Times, CNN and Politico were not allowed to enter the West Wing office of the press secretary, Sean M. Spicer, for the scheduled briefing. Aides to Mr. Spicer allowed in reporters from only a handpicked group of news organizations that, the White House said, had been previously confirmed to attend.



Predictably, Spicer allowed several organizations that are friendly to the Trump Administration's agenda to attend the press briefing, including Breitbart News, Fox, The Washington Times and the One America News Network.

Reporters from the Associated Press and Time magazine were not barred from the briefing, but they declined to attend in protest of the White House's decision to exclude the news organizations, which include the Los Angeles Times and BuzzFeed.

According to the Washington Post, " New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet declared that “nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties.”

President Trump and his close adviser Stephen K. Bannon consider CNN, the New York Times, and other media outlets that publish stories that don't reflect the White House's world view to be "the opposition party" - and worse.


In a speech at the Conservative Political Action Committee, the President ceaselessly bashed the media.


“A few days ago, I called the fake news media the enemy of the people, and they are. They are the enemy of the people," Trump said.


Per CNN: 


"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."



As for Fox News' position, it seems that the cable network - which is owned by the conservative-leaning mogul Rupert Murdoch - is sending mixed messages to the public.

On one hand, the Washington Post reports that a Fox anchor tweeted in support of the organizations that were excluded from the press "gaggle."

Per the Post: 



Fox News anchor Bret Baier quickly discouraged gloating on the right, noting that his network's rivals showed solidarity when the Obama White House tried to freeze out Fox News eight years ago.
This is what Baier had to say on Twitter:
Some at CNN & NYT stood w/FOX News when the Obama admin attacked us & tried 2 exclude us-a WH gaggle should be open to all credentialed orgs
However, if you go to the Fox News website, the story is not visible on its pages.


Updated at 11:35 p.m:
In an effort to see if Fox's web site mentioned the controversy on its front page, I visited it just a few minutes ago. Nope. The news is absent from www.foxnews.com's home page. Plenty of stories about ISIS, veteran-related issues, plus other topics geared to its conservative readers, but nothing about the White House's strained relations with the press.

Sources:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/us/politics/white-house-sean-spicer-briefing.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0&referer

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/24/white-house-blocks-cnn-new-york-times-from-press-briefing-hours-after-trump-slams-media/?utm_term=.7574c2fb5718

ccccmoney.cnn.com/2017/02/24/media/cnn-blocked-white-house-gaggle/index.html

http://www.foxnews.com/us.html

https://twitter.com/BretBaier/status/835206562549493760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

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