Sunday, January 15, 2017

Will a “President Donald Trump” throw “The White House Press Corps” out of the White House ???


Exclusive: The Trump Administration May Evict the Press from the White House – They are the opposition party,’ a senior official says' ”  ---  Esquire.


Reports appearing in mediums as diverse as “The Hill”; “USA Today”; the “NY Daily News”; “Mediaite”; “Talking Points Memo”; the “Daily Caller”; and “Slate” picked up and reported on Esquire’s “exclusive”  ---  showing that there is a real buzz going around about major changes in how a “President Donald Trump” will be dealing with an entity referred to as “The White House Press Corps”


Here’s how the Daily Caller handled this apparently emerging story:   The Trump-transition team is reportedly considering plans to evict the White House press corps from its home in the presidential residence, in what White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer says is a move to actually increase the media’s access to the president….   Citing three ‘senior sources,’ Esquire first reported the plan under consideration in President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team, which Spicer later acknowledged to the magazine….   ‘There’s been so much interest in covering a President Donald Trump,’ he said. ‘A question is: Is a room that has forty-nine seats adequate? When we had that press conference the other day, we had thousands of requests, and we capped it at four hundred,’ he told the publication. ‘Is there an opportunity to potentially allow more members of the media to be part of this? That’s something we’re discussing.’…”   (See “Report: Trump Considering Evicting Press Corps From White House” by Juliegrace Brufke, 1/15/17, The Daily Caller  [http://dailycaller.com/2017/01/15/report-trump-considering-evicting-press-corps-from-white-house/]).


The Brufke-Daily Caller article went on to say,  “….   Reporters, who have long sat in the West Wing, could potentially end up in the Old Executive Office Building, next door or in the White House Conference Center by  Lafayette Square, Esquire reports.”


The report that appeared in Slate was somewhat more combative.  In addition to the basic reporting on Esquire’s scoop, Slate added this”   “…   any potential move has more to do with the contentious relationship Trump has with the press, which has led some in the administration to see the reporters as more than just mere observers. ‘They are the opposition party,’ a senior official told Esquire. ‘I want 'em out of the building. We are taking back the press room.’…"   (See  “Trump Team Considers Kicking Press Corps Out of White House” by Daniel Politi, 1/15.17, Slate   [http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/15/trump_administration_could_kick_press_corps


SOMETHING ESQUIRE'S ORIGINAL ARTICLE ALSO SAID

Esquire’s original piece that covered all of the above points, and even more, closed with this:   “….   Trump himself, of course, is in many ways a creature of the press, and it remains to be seen whether he will sign off on a plan that puts more distance between him and the cameras whose attention he has long sought. But for some Trump officials, the media's presumption of entitlement all but requires a change. If there is a credo that reflects the culture inside the James Brady Briefing Room (named after President Ronald Reagan's first press secretary, who was wounded by a bullet meant for Reagan), it is that presidents come, and presidents go, but the White House press corps is forever. In that sentiment, some in the transition team discern precisely the attitude that led to the revolt that elected Trump president.”   (See  Exclusive: The Trump Administration May Evict the Press from the White House” by Peter J. Boyer, 1/14/17, Esquire   [http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a52301/trump-evict-press-white-house/]).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Times have changed and that includes media. Maybe the whole White House Press operation needs a change. When this blog went up I cancelled my subscription to the NY Times and WSJ. I no longer needed them.