Fun with the Press

The president-elect, Donald Trump, held a news conference this week for a few announcements, including a Veterans' Affairs secretary nominee, and for an opportunity for the press to ask him some questions.

That sure was a fun time, and I think more fun was had by Mr. Trump than by almost anyone else there.  Certainly he had a better time than the CNN reporter Jim Acosta, whose network had already asked a question and then wanted the president-elect to answer another.

Now, Mr. Trump could have declined to allow him a second question solely on the merits of the fact that 400 other reporters were there wanting to ask a question, and that CNN had no innate right to ask any more than one question, given that lots of reporters were not going to get to ask one.

But that, of course, was not the reason.  Mr. Trump was not happy with the fact that CNN had picked up a story from the fake-news outlet "Buzzfeed" relating to some type of information that Russia had that was compromising to Mr. Trump, and that theoretically could be used as blackmail to get some type of leverage on the incoming president.

Given that the story had been out there in the undercurrent of the news media for several months, the fact that it had never been published until now is testimony to the fact that even the media outlets that detest Mr. Trump, such as the New York Times, refused to publish it even in the middle of a presidential campaign.  That was simply because their microscopic, but not totally eliminated journalistic moral compasses recognized that there was not a shred of corroborating material.

Even the New York Times walked quickly away from that non-story, but CNN decided to ensure that it was out there, regardless.  They had a right; it's a free country with a free press.  And Donald Trump also has the right to decide whom he is going to take questions from, and after allowing them one already, it was certainly not going to be CNN.

The CNN reporter would not shut up, and rudely kept saying that he wanted (to ask) another question.  Trump recognized a different reporter to ask, but the CNN guy kept at it, until Trump finally referred to CNN itself as "fake news" and moved on.  We all saw it, and it was fun for at least some of us to see the press treated in accordance with the level of journalistic integrity each outlet may or may not have.

Aside ... I was in New York on business some time in the late 1970s when Ed Koch was the mayor of New York City.  Koch was a pretty straightforward, all-business, no-nonsense guy.  This one day he was doing a news conference and some reporter asked him about a story that had come out about something Koch would probably not be pleased with.  Koch asked him what his source was, to which the reporter answered "The Village Voice."  Koch sneered "That's your source???", and then immediately moved on to another question without answering.  I loved it. 

The press is granted Constitutional protection beyond that given to almost any other institution in the USA.  It will never be withdrawn, but it is a treasure that must be appropriately handled.  If the media choose to run with under-validated stories, well, they will be allowed to do so the next day and the next, without fear of government intervention.

But it doesn't mean that the president will be under any obligation to take their questions.  And the more that formerly reliable outlets such as CNN continue to act with fractured ethics, the more scenes such as Wednesday we will be treated to.

That's OK.  I had fun, and expect more amusement in the coming years.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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