Trump faces media wrath after briefing ban
BBC promises to ‘continue to be fair and impartial’ as it joins New York Times and CNN on barred list
MAJOR news organisations including the BBC and New York Times led criticism yesterday against Donald Trump’s White House for banning media outlets from a press briefing.
The BBC, which Mr Trump derisively labelled “a real beauty” during a recent press conference, was among those barred from Friday’s daily briefing.
Paul Danahar, BBC Americas Editor, said it was “not clear” what led to the ban. He said: “The BBC’s reporting of the White House will continue to be fair and impartial regardless.” Dean Baquet, editor of the New York
Times, said it would “strongly protest” at the decision to ban it.
“Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties,” he said.
CNN, which was also banned, called the move “unacceptable” in a statement. “Apparently, this is how they retaliate when you report facts they don’t like. We’ll keep reporting regardless.”
Mr Trump announced yesterday that he will not attend the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner, a high-profile event that draws celebrities, politicians and journalists.
“I will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!”, he wrote on Twitter.
Mr Trump has had a strained relationship with the press calling journalists “the enemy of the people” and frequently criticizing outlets and individual reporters whose coverage he does not like. The dinner will be held on April 29 in Washington.
Hours after Mr Trump unleashed an anti-media diatribe at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Sean Spicer, the president’s spokesman, barred those organisations and others from a briefing in his office.
Mr Spicer said the Trump White House had been showing “an abundance of accessibility”, but that he understood why there had been complaints.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Mr Spicer’s deputy, defended the move, saying the briefing was going to be limited to a small “pool” before “we decided to add a couple of additional people beyond the pool”. Among those invited were Right-wing outlets including Breitbart News, the website once led by White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Mr Trump continued to criticise the media yesterday, claiming he was not receiving sufficient credit for the state of the US economy.
It also emerged that the White House enlisted intelligence officials and members of Congress to contact news organisations and refute reports of links between Mr Trump’s campaign aides and Russian intelligence. Mr Spicer confirmed the Washington
Post report but denied that anything inappropriate had taken place.
The son of boxer Muhammad Ali was held for hours at a Florida airport while immigration officials asked him whether he was Muslim and where he got his name from, according to the Courier-Journal newspaper. Muhammad Ali Jr, 44, was born in the US and holds a US passport.
Last week, the White House barred several major news organisations from a press briefing. This action was heavy-handed and unwise. A democracy relies upon allowing the free press to scrutinise government; a lack of scrutiny insulates governments from alternative opinions that they sometimes need to hear.
Donald Trump shows no signs of softening his political style now that he is in the White House. His agenda is populist; parts of it are laudable. In Tuesday night’s speech to Congress he will have a chance to lay out a legislative programme that, hopefully, will include a radical tax package to stimulate the US economy. The UK Government is right to try to court Mr Trump, partly in hope of influencing his foreign policy.
It is also critical, however, that the new president is held to account. This newspaper has experience of being locked out of briefings: our reporters were, for instance, not invited to Alex Salmond’s resignation statement. It is typically a sign of weakness, not of the self-confidence that Mr Trump otherwise exudes. A healthy back-and-forth brings transparency to public life. And if politicians wish to criticise their interrogators, so be it – that itself is an exercise of free expression. They should not use their authority or legislation to try to silence journalists. The Left has tried to do the latter in this country – something this newspaper and others stridently resist.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump may find that his antimedia crusade backfires. A jilted press makes for an angry press. Any hope for more generous coverage from some of those outlets banned from the conference is lost. The war between the White House and the American media will only escalate.