“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
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.
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