WHY PRESIDENT TRUMP CALLS THE PRESS DECEITFUL… BECAUSE THEY ARE!
By J Gary DiLaura
The creators of our Constitution recognized the necessity and power of the press as an integral part of our free society. The Constitution never gave the press access to the White House, the presidents did! The press was first given a work space around 1902 but concentrated mostly on what Congress was doing until around 1950.
President Teddy Roosevelt gave the press their first “press room”, although they were still primarily covering Congress. Roosevelt used the press and courted them to what he wanted printed. If he didn’t like what they wrote he kicked them out and courted another one who was friendly to the President! It was an honor for a reporter to be allowed access to the White House and a bigger honor to speak with the President! If the president didn’t like a reporter, he was gone! Consequently, the news media’s sent their best reporters to the White House!
In 1934, under President Franklin Roosevelt, the West Wing was gutted and a work area for the press was created with desks, phones, and telegraph. The press working areas were moved all over due to the increasing demand for access because of the growth of the media, by 1934 numbering in the hundreds.
From the time of Woodrow Wilson to WWII, credentialed press reporters hovered around the President’s desk in the oval office shouting questions to the President! Around 1950 Harry Truman had enough of the oval office press conferences and moved them to the Indian Treaty Room. There was never enough room!
With today’s 24 hour news stations, even a major paper or TV station won’t survive without access to the White House! Their competitors will bury them!
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT JUST A “RIGHT”… IT’S A “RESPONSIBILTY”!
The press has a right to freely report the news but it also has a responsibility to the American people to report the news fairly and objectively without cutting, personal, reporter comments and most important of all, honestly! The President has the right and the power to cancel press credentials if he believes a news media is broadcasting phony news and is trying to undermine the office of the President!! If a reporter or editor wants to influence our Rule of Law and change the face of America, then drop your purse, man up and run for office, instead of slinging all the crap you can find without any named sources, at a man who put his everything on the line for what he believes! He put his life, money, business, family on the line!
What does a dishonest reporter risk? A handful of back stabbing, wannabe Nobel, Pulitzer Prize “whining” reporters who never had a real job in their lives, try to undermine the President because of their agenda! Do you think Matt Lauer/Chris Mathews would take offense if another reporter printed that an unnamed, anonymous source reported that he’s a pedophile?
The power of the press is unquestionably great but so is the President’s. The difference is,the President is elected and the press is not! The President is obligated by oath, by law and by moral conviction to tell the truth and defend our country. Apparently, the press is NOT!
In my opinion, the UNELECTED press, whose only goals today are to become rich and famous, have no obligation to tell the truth. If they did, CNN, Matt Lauer, Donna Brazile would all have been fined, fired or charged with a crime for giving questions and answers to a candidate before the Presidential debate, all in an attempt to “influence a Presidential election”, like they say the Russians did!! The lack of outrage, by the left, tells me that it is common place with their party!
The press has bastardized their power to the point of outright corruption and is trying to become the 4th branch of government…Executive, Legislative, Judicial, and Press!
If the press doesn’t like the choice “We the People” made, again… man up and run for office! Quit trying to overturn, undermine, dethrone or otherwise disrupt our Rule of Law! I say it’s time to take press credentials away and let’s see who suffers more, CNN, Washington Post, NY Times or the President! Let’s see how long they last reporting “second hand ” news!
As an FBI Agent working in NY I saw firsthand, many times, how the press makes things up to suit their purpose. Hoover had a policy of “no comment” and it was certain “death” to any Agent who violated that rule! I worked many high profile cases from bank robberies to hijacking to kidnapping where we were lead stories and front page news and event synopses were prepared by the Agents, given to the front office and an official release was made. The only resemblance between what really happened and what the news media’s actually reported, was accidental! They believed they had to fill in the gaps and fill they did! That was some 40 years ago and the reliability of the major media has gone down since then!
The only “checks and balances” we have on the Press is the President’s ability to ban them from first hand info. Neither the courts nor law enforcement can get the names of their sources! They are out of control!!! What’s the sense of letting them have the news first hand if they’re going to make it up anyway? Second hand should be good enough…hand in your press credentials and ask Hannity what was said!
That’s MY opinion!!!
