Yesterday, during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump called on a reporter from The Christian Broadcasting Network and Katie Pavlich from Townhall dot com to ask questions. As a result, mainstream media people were not happy.
People like Matthew Dowd are saying it is about Trump only picking friendly media outlets to ask questions:
It isn't about @CeciliaVega or @jonkarl or @ABC not getting questions. It is about only taking questions from friendly media outlets.
— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) February 16, 2017
If Trump took questions from The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, The NY Post, Boston Herald, Fox Business and other outlets that lean right to the exclusion of other outlets, this would be a valid concern. However, that is not the case.
The complaints were specifically about the outlets chosen. Here’s Katy Tur from NBC:
Town Hall and Christian Broadcasting Network.
— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) February 15, 2017
You can sense her level of disdain.
Glenn Thrush of the NY Times:
Trump showing a willingness to stand up to tough, withering questioning on the Flynn crisis from the likes of Town Hall, CBN, Daily Caller.
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) February 15, 2017
Sense a pattern starting to develop?
Jim Sciutto of CNN:
One way to avoid hard questions on Trump admin #Russia ties? Call on CBN & a conservative website.
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) February 15, 2017
Sciutto doesn’t even bother to name Townhall. He just condescendingly refers to them as a “conservative website.”
Lucian Kim of NPR
Trump calls on reporters from Christian Broadcasting Network, Townhall. The end.
— Lucian Kim (@Lucian_Kim) February 15, 2017
Do you see? This has nothing to do with any sense of fairness or concern that Trump won’t answer questions from a variety of reporting outlets. They likely think CBN and Townhall are “icky” and shouldn’t be allowed to attend press conferences.
Naturally, they don’t realize that sneering at media outlets they don’t like is part of the reason they’re so disdained. Time for a little self-reflection, people.
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