BROOKE GLADSTONE: And now, the latest dispatch from the war on the press. This week, the president swapped his blunderbuss for a grenade, which he lobbed at CNN, CNN being the president’s prime bugbear, his bête noire, his boogie man.
MALE CORRESPONDENT: In an unprecedented move, CNN correspondent Kaitlan Collins was actually banned from a late-afternoon press event in the Rose Garden because the White House simply didn’t like the questions she asked the president earlier in the day.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Collins had been serving as pool reporter, there representing the five TV networks which rotate their reporters to cover these photo ops in the hopes that the president will engage. It just happened to be CNN’s turn.
[CLIP]:
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you, everybody.
KAITLAN COLLINS: Mr. President are you worried about what Michael Cohen is going to say to persecutors?
MAN: Let’s keep going. Let’s keep going.
KAITLAN COLLINS: Are you worried about what is on the other tapes, Mr. President?
MAN: Keep going. Thank you all. Keep going. Thank you, everybody.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much, everyone.
KAITLAN COLLINS: Why has Vladimir Putin not accepted your invitation, Mr. President?
[INDISTINCT COMMENTS]
MAN: Thank you, everybody, thank you, everybody.
MAN: Okay, come on, guys. Thank you very much.
KAITLAN COLLINS: Why has Vladimir Putin not accepted your invitation, Mr. President?
[END CLIP]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: That’s what reporters do at these things. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. Until she was barred from an open press event in the Rose Garden because her questions had been deemed inappropriate, that’s when the press got into formation. Fox News’s Bret Baier.
[CLIP]:
BRET BAIER: As a member of the White House press pool, Fox stands firmly with CNN on this issue of access. So far, no response from the White House.
[END CLIP]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The White House has since responded. Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications and former Fox News honcho Bill Shine, bounced from Fox for allegedly abetting sexual harassment at the network, charged fake news! Despite what the networks were claiming, he never said that the CNN reporter was banned from the open press event. She was merely, in the words of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, “not welcome to participate.”
Politico’s Jack Shafer called it “The Shining” and said that the new communications chief was making the press corps great again. The New York Times’ Peter Baker, the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser, the White House press corps itself and, as noted, Fox News, to name a few, stood shoulder to shoulder, which is notable because signs of media solidarity are rare.
At a press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May, Trump shut down CNN’s Jim Acosta.
[CLIP]:
JIM ACOSTA: Mr. President, since you, since you attacked CNN, can I ask you a question —
PRESIDENT TRUMP: John Roberts, go ahead, John.
JIM ACOSTA: Can I ask you a question?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, no. John Roberts, go ahead. CNN is fake news. I don’t take questions — I don’t take questions from CNN. CNN is fake news. I don’t take questions from CNN. John Roberts of Fox. Let’s go to a real, let’s go to a real network. John, let’s go.
JIM ACOSTA: Well, we’re a real network, too, sir.
JOHN ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. President.
[END CLIP]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The condemnation of Fox’s John Roberts was swift. And so, a few hours later.
[CLIP]:
JOHN ROBERTS: I used to work at CNN. They have fine journalists there who risk their lives to cover the news around the world and to say that they are not a real network or “fake news” is also unfair, so I just wanted to add that in there.
[END CLIP]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: After all, as his Fox college Bret Baier tweeted, back in ’09, “When President Obama’s administration left us out of round robin interviews — CNN and @jaketapper spoke out for us. As a member of the WH press pool - on the news side - that’s what is supposed to happen.”
MALE CORRESPONDENT: And on Thursday, the Treasury Department tried to exclude Fox News from pool coverage of interviews with one of its key officials. It backed down after strong protests from the press.
MALE CORRESPONDENT: All the networks said, that’s it, you’ve crossed the line.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Pete Vernon is a staff writer with the Columbia Journalism Review. This week, he wrote, “Why the White House Banning a CNN Reporter Actually Matters.”
PETE VERNON: I mean, you can go back to the campaign when Jorge Ramos was thrown out of a Trump event and no one in the moment stood up for him. He was thrown out pretty violently from that event.
[CLIP]:
JORGE RAMOS, UNIVISION: You cannot deport 11 million people. You cannot build a 1900-mile wall. You cannot deny citizenship to children in this country.
[BOTH SPEAK/OVERLAP]
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Sit down please.
JORGE RAMOS: Those ideas --
PRESIDENT TRUMP: You weren’t called.
JORGE RAMOS: I’m a reporter and I have, I have survived [ ? ]. [INDISTINCT COMMENTS]
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes, go ahead.
CHIP REID, CBS: Thank you, Mr. Trump.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Hi Chip, yes.
[END CLIP]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: They didn’t just not stand up for the veteran reporter. They questioned his motives.
[CLIPS]:
MALE CORRESPONDENT: Jorge Ramos was acting like a journalist.
FEMALE CORRESPONDENT: Oh no!
[BOTH SPEAK/OVERLAP]
MALE CORRESPONDENT: He didn’t say that to the other journalists by cutting in front now.
FEMALE CORRESPONDENT: And I think that you notice that all those reporters were right behind Mr. Trump saying, that’s right, we’re here, we’re waiting our turn.
MALE CORRESPONDENT: Jorge, Donald Trump says you’re an advocate, not a journalist. What is your response? Do you consider yourself to be an advocate?
JORGE RAMOS: I’m just a reporter asking questions.
[END CLIP]
PETE VERNON: It was troubling not to see people stand up for him. It was troubling in Donald Trump’s press conference just before he became president not to see anyone stand up for CNN or BuzzFeed when he attacked them and called them names there.
But as this administration has gone along and as the attacks on the press have escalated, I think journalists have adapted, and it’s been really heartening to see the support and solidarity over the past week or so.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: You know what, there’s one thing that the, the media have never shied away from, which is describing every other goddamn moment as a turning point. Is this a turning point?
PETE VERNON: [LAUGHS] It, it’s a good question. I don’t know if this is something that we can expect to be seeing every week, someone yielding the floor in a press briefing, or, you know, I don’t know whether Trump will provide moments when the press can stand in solidarity and say, you know what, this is bigger than any one outlet.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: I’ll tell you what my concern is, is that people will take to Twitter or Facebook or, actually, to their broadcasts or news organizations and object but don't change their behavior in any significant way, doesn't make the White House pay for the continuous attacks because they feel they have to pay constant attention to whatever the White House does, regardless of whether or not it's of any real significance.
PETE VERNON: All right, is there really any way to make the White House pay, beyond getting the public to care about this? And that goes back to the idea of saying, all right, this is why this is important. This administration is telling you, we’re not going to allow certain perspectives, certain questions to be asked and we’re going to tell you not to believe what you see and hear. That idea that this is part of a bigger issue is, I think, the only way that you can get people to care because otherwise it's just, you know, sort of inside baseball and journalists talking to each other.
[MUSIC UP & UNDER]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well, that never happens [LAUGHS], she says on a media analysis show.
PETE VERNON: [LAUGHS] Exactly, so coming from a media reporter at a huge publication, focused on the media.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS] Thanks again, Pete.
PETE VERNON: No, thanks so much.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Pete Vernon is a staff writer with the Columbia Journalism Review.
BOB GARFIELD: Coming up, finding a culprit in the decimation of the New York Daily News.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media.
