Trump White House Blames Jim Acosta

[gotsnowgotslush]

Jim Acosta tried to get answers!

That is not what Trump White House press briefings are for!

The new rules are as follows:

1) A journalist called upon a question will ask a single question and then yield the floor to other journalists.

2) At the discretion of the President or other White House official taking questions, a follow-up question or questions may be permitted; and where a follow up has been allowed and asked, the questioner will then yield the floor.

3) “Yielding the floor” includes, when applicable, physically surrendering the microphone to White House staff for use by the next questioner.

4) Failure to abide by any of the rules (1)-(3) may result in suspension or revocation of the journalist’s hard pass.

https://theslot.jezebel.com/sarah-sanders-has-new-rules-to-help-white-house-reporte-1830561583


Ban on Follow-Up Questions Among Trump's New 'Dictatorial' Rules for White House Reporters


November 20, 2018

"The White House belongs to the public, not the president, and the job of the press is to ask hard questions, not to be polite," ACLU declared in response to the rules.



How these 'rules' will be applied is entirely unclear," Townsend continued, "and the way they are written leaves wide open the possibility that the White House will use them as an excuse to avoid answering questions it does not like, or—as it did with Mr. Acosta and CNN—to punish particular reporters and news outlets based on what the White House views as unfavorable coverage of the administration."


https://www.commondreams.org/news/2...s-new-dictatorial-rules-white-house-reporters


Trump's message to the journalists who cover him could not be clearer: If a reporter chooses to persistently question the president about a topic he finds unpleasant or wishes to avoid—as Acosta, April Ryan, Sam Donaldson, and other leading journalists have long sought—she can expect to be expelled from the White House.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/white-house-cnn-jim-acosta-first-amendment-trump.html

"... a president who doggedly refuses to accept the mandates of the First Amendment,..."

gsgs comment- It is not as if Trump has respect for anything.

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

In issuing these rules, the White House apparently hopes to be able to suspend reporters' credentials without running afoul of due process protections.

"So, out of their Acosta nonsense, the White House has made it a punishable violation for anyone to say 'could you please address the specific question I asked,' 'could you please provide an example,' or 'that’s actually not true' without their permission?" asked Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale. "This has basically been standard procedure - don’t hog the mic, don’t ask a bunch of questions if the president wants to move on - but there hasn’t been a rule saying that asking a second question they didn’t approve is punishable by being kicked out of the White House forever."


Asking follow-up questions without explicit permission is so ubiquitous that it's hard to imagine the White House will punish every reporter who does so. However, Trump and Sanders are almost guaranteed to selectively use the rules when they want to punish specific reporters, perhaps for entirely unrelated reasons.

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-p...s-cnn-reporter-jim-acostas-credentials-issues


So, another sideshow was created.

The First Amendment is getting abused.

 

[KeithD]

Jim Acosta tried to get answers!

Or felt it was his right to disrupt the press conference, depending on your point of view.

He was trying to disrupt Donald Trump, who richly deserved it. The rest of the press was in various stages of cheering for him. Both Trump and Sanders deserve to be embarrassed into giving real press conferences--ones without them casting out a bunch of insidious lies and juvenile posturing.

 

[dan_c00000]

Or felt it was his right to disrupt the press conference, depending on your point of view.

So asking "tough" questions to those in power is "disruption"? Man Trump really has you wrapped around his finger doesn't he?

Could you imagine if someone yelled out "You lie!" during the State of the Union. Or someone questioning the whole validity of a presidency by claiming the president wasn't born in the US?

I bet that would really tick you off! Unless, you know, that president was a black guy.