White House Correspondents Insider

Behind the scenes of the most powerful city in the world — Washington, D.C. — and those who cover it.

Twitter Employee Disabled Trump’s Account on Last Day

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Twitter announced late Thursday that an employee deactivated the account of President Donald Trump for 11 minutes on his last day on the job.

After an investigation, Twitter said that “[t]hrough our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee’s last day.  We are conducting a full internal review.”

Trump himself seemed to brush off the incident, suggesting the employee’s actions showed the impact the president was having through social media.

The president’s Twitter account is highly watched, with 41.7 million followers viewing more than 36,000 tweets reportedly sent from Trump himself, often directing the news cycle of the day and raising controversy.

Radio & Television Correspondents’ Association Holds 73rd Annual Correspondents’ Dinner

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Uber’s Justin Kintz with Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer. Photo courtesy Haddad Media

The Radio & Television Correspondents’ Association brought together hundreds of journalists, politicos and business leaders Wednesday evening at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC for the 73rd annual Radio & Television Congressional Correspondents’ Dinner.

The evening began with a reception hosted by media champion Uber.

Photo courtesy Haddad Media

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan wowed the crowd with his keynote address, taking a jovial tone by telling the crowd that:

“The reason I wanted to come by is because I have seen your latest approval ratings.  And I just want to tell you, keep your heads up.  As low as they are, they could be a whole lot worse.  Because they could be my approval ratings.”

The Speaker turned to a more serious topic, addressing the role of a free press in our nation.  While the White House dismisses stories critical of the administration as “fake news,” the Speaker praised the work done by the media and the central role journalists play in our system of government.

“We have a very messy system. But this very messy system of government is the best possible system, and this messy system of government completely relies on a free and open press… Our Republic does not work without what you do.”

IHeartRadio’s Bobby Bones was the Master of Ceremonies for the evening, with headline entertainer and correspondent for Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” Roy Wood, Jr. making fun of all parties with a great riff on the importance of trust.

Guests included House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senator Joe Manchin, Rep. Mark Meadows, Wolf Blitzer, Dana Bash, Craig Gordon, Ryan Williams, Brian Lamb, Sara Murray, Gloria Borger, Justin Kintz, Jimmy Kemp, Kenny Day, Bill Gibbons, John Parkinson, Robin Sproul, Sam Feist and Kevin Cirilli.

Get some popcorn and watch the entirety of the 73rd Annual Radio & Television Congressional Correspondents’ Dinner courtesy of C-SPAN here.

Jimmy Kemp, Justin Kintz, Carly DeBeikes, Ken Strickland, Sam Feist and friends. Photo courtesy Haddad Media

Attorney General Refuses To Rule Out Jailing Journalists

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By U.S. Customs and Border Protection (160120-H-NI589-0103) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

During a hearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated he could not make a “blanket commitment” against jailing journalists for reporting the news.

In response to a question posed from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) asking him to pledge not to put “reporters in jail for doing their jobs,” the Attorney General responded:

“Well, I don’t know that I can make a blanket commitment to that effect.  But I will say this, we have not taken any aggressive action against the media at this point.”

Sen. Klobuchar commented that the president’s recent tweets suggesting the administration could look into revoking broadcast licenses for networks prompted her to ask the Attorney General for clarification.

“We always try to find an alternative way, as you probably know, Sen. Klobuchar, to directly confronting media persons.  But that’s not a total blanket protection,” Sessions told the committee.

 

New Poll: Nearly Half of American Voters Think Media Makes Up Stories About Trump

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Photo courtesy Pixabay.

Nearly half of registered voters in the United States agree with President Trump, believing that the media fabricates “fake news” stories about the White House.

In the survey, 46 percent of respondents — 76 percent of Republicans, 20 percent of Democrats and 44 percent of Independents — say they think the media invents stories about the current administration.  Conversely, 37 percent — 11 percent of Republicans, 65 percent of Democrats and 31 percent of Independents — disagree.

Among supporters of Trump, those numbers surge to an overwhelming 85 percent believe the media makes up news stories about the president.

“Dishonesty in the media is one of the things that surprised me most,” the president recently said during a radio interview with Chris Plante.  “I thought after I won, the media would become much more stable and much more honest.  They’ve gone crazy.  CNN is a joke.  NBC is a total joke.  You watch what they report, it bears no relationship to what I’m doing.  But the media is absolutely dishonest.  And frankly, I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

Respondents disagreed with the president’s suggestion to revoke broadcast licenses for networks based off news content.  Only 28 percent believed the government should have the power to revoke licenses, with 51 percent disagreeing the government should have that power.  21 percent were undecided.

The survey was conducted by Morning Consult for Politico between October 12-16 2017, interviewing 1,991 registered voters.  The margin of error in the poll is plus or minus 2 percent.

Judge Dismisses Russian Billionaire’s Libel Lawsuit Against AP

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Photo courtesy Michael Wuertenberg via Wikipedia.

A libel suit against the Associated Press by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who has close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, was dismissed by a federal judge Tuesday.

In a 21-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle said Deripaska’s lawsuit over a March story about his business relationship with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had “cherry-picked” statements from the story that he wrongly claimed were defamatory.

“Deripaska has cherry-picked sentences and strung them together to give the AP’s article an effect it does not have when read in full,” the judge wrote. “But whole context is how courts determine whether there is defamation.”

Huvelle wrote that the lawsuit failed to show the AP story was written with disregard for the truth or published maliciously, a legal standard Deripaska would have to meet for the case to move forward.  Instead, the suit complained that the story ignored background information Deripaska considered critical.

“As the AP points out,” Huvelle wrote in her decision, “this simply is not enough to make out a plausible case of actual malice.”

The story in question reported on how Manafort had proposed a business strategy to Deripaska a decade ago, supporting pro-Russian political parties and influencing politics and news coverage in the United States and Europe.

The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, meaning Deripaska cannot file it in court again.

 

White House Reporters: “Thank God We Have His Tweets”

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Photo courtesy Pixabay.

Four notable journalists talked about the positives and negatives of covering the current White House during a wide-ranging panel discussion at SVA Theater during the annual New Yorker Festival.

Titled “All the President’s Reporters,” New York Times’ Jo Becker, CNN’s Carl Bernstein, The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer and Washington Post’s Greg Miller talked about the unique aspects covering Donald Trump’s presidency.

His habit of engaging in tweet-storms several times a week was noted as an important pathway to understand the president’s thoughts on issues of the day.

“Thank God we have his tweets,” said Carl Bernstein.  “It’s like a road map to the mind of Donald Trump.”

Greg Miller agreed, calling the president’s tweets “footage” recording the turbulent first period of the administration.

Jo Becker brought up the divisions across different media organizations, with the landscape starkly different from outlet to outlet that things can play out as dramatically and surprisingly as the 2016 campaign coverage showed.  She pointed out much of today’s discourse happens within media outlets, in stark difference to Bernstein’s coverage of Watergate, where CBS News’ Walter Cronkite would laud the reporting of the Washington Post in its coverage, putting the issue on the national agenda.

“It would be [MSNBC’s] Rachel Maddow preaching to the converted, and then Fox News would go after you and Bob [Woodward],” Becker made the point to Bernstein.

Jane Mayer emphasized her belief that regardless of stonewalling and “fake news,” the truth always comes out eventually.

“The truth comes out.  It sometimes takes a while, but it comes out.  There’s a strong public-service streak that people in public office have when they see power being abused.”

Following the panel discussion, questions turned to the division between media outlets and the hyper-partisan viewpoint of readers.  “I have my friends from school and I have my friends from Washington,” Miller said while describing growing up in a remote California town of 500 residents.  “My school friends all think I’m fake news.  They didn’t think I was fake in 5th grade but now I do.”

Bernstein wrapped up the panel noting that individuals no longer tune into national news broadcasts nightly, but rely on outlets portraying a specific political viewpoint with which they agree.  “We’re losing a large part of the country [which ignores mainstream media].  And I don’t think they’re coming back.”

FCC Chair: No Authority to Revoke Licenses Over Content

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Photo courtesy FCC.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said his agency doesn’t have the authority to revoke a broadcast network’s license based on content, in response to a recent tweet by President Donald Trump.

“Under the law, the FCC does not have the authority to revoke a license of a broadcast station based on the content of a particular newscast,” Pai said at an event sponsored by AT&T.  “I believe in the First Amendment.  The FCC under my leadership will stand for the First Amendment.”

President Trump tweeted last week that the FCC should investigate revoking NBC’s broadcasting license after NBC News published a story that said he had called for a ten-fold increase in the nation’s nuclear stockpile.


FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel also tweeted “Not how it works,” in response to the president.

Pai was also asked if the FCC had a role in determining what constitutes “fake news.”

“Traditionally, that has not been within the FCC jurisdiction,” the chairman replied.

California Governor Vetoes Bill Requiring Presidential Candidates to Release Tax Reforms

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Photo courtesy Neon Tommy / Annenberg Digital News.

Late Sunday, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) vetoed pending legislation requiring presidential candidates appearing on California’s ballot releasing their federal tax returns to the public.

Although the bill passed the Democratic-controlled legislature, Brown warned the measure could eventually lead to requirements of candidates to release other private information, such as health records or birth certificates.

“While I recognize the political attractiveness — even the merits — of getting President Trump’s tax returns, I worry about the political perils of individual states seeking to regulate the presidential elections in this manner.  Will these requirements vary depending on which political party is in power?” the governor wrote in his veto message.

Sunday was the deadline for Brown to sign or veto this measure from the 2017 legislative session.  The measure’s prime sponsor, state Sen. Mike McGuire (D) did not comment on the veto message.

Bob Schieffer: Trump’s Attacks On Media Undermine “Foundations” of Democracy

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Photo courtesy Haddad Media

Legendary CBS News journalist Bob Schieffer appeared on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” Sunday, suggesting that President Trump’s attacks on the media and journalists are “undermining the foundations of our democracy.”

While Schieffer said he doesn’t give much credibility to Trump’s frequent criticisms about the media on Twitter, he did say that:

“What I do take seriously is when he tries to destroy the credibility of the media.  An independent press that can gather information that people can compare to the government’s versions of events – that is what we do.”

Prompted by host Brian Stelter on the president’s remarks, Schieffer explained that:

“It is as crucial to our democracy as the right to vote.  And when people try to undermine that, I think they are undermining the foundations of our democracy.”

During the past week, President Trump suggested on Twitter the FCC should review the broadcast licenses of “distorted and fake” networks, especially NBC.  He also said to reporters during an Oval Office meeting with the Canadian prime minister that it is “disgusting the press is able to write whatever it wants to write.”

Indiana State Lawmaker Proposes Legislation Requiring Journalists to Register With Police

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Indiana State Capitol. Photo courtesy Pixabay.

A state lawmaker in Indiana has proposed legislation requiring state police to license professional journalists.

Rep. Jim Lucas, a Republican from the city of  Seymour in the southern region of the state, has been critical of press coverage of his efforts to repeal laws requiring a permit to carry a handgun.  He claims the media has frequently mischaracterized his proposal in news stories, editorials and columns.

“If I was as irresponsible with my handgun as the media has been with their keyboard, I’d probably be in jail,” Lucas stated.  “Why wouldn’t I push for it? If one constitutional right is OK to license, then they all are.”

The bill to license journalists, which Lucas claims is designed to grab attention instead of seriously be considered, is nearly identical to Indiana’s law requiring a license to carry a handgun.  The proposal would require professional journalists to register with state police.  They would be fingerprinted and pay a $75 fee for a lifetime license.  Applicants with a prior felony conviction could have their application rejected.

Andrew Seaman, chairman of ethics for the Society of Professional Journalists, notes that the First Amendment is not without restrictions.

“The truth is that there are already a number of restrictions on the First Amendment.  We have libel laws, copyright laws and countelss others that rein in the speech and press rights under the First Amendment.”

Lucas’ bill to license media in Indiana is one of many efforts to seek publicity on social issues.  In December, he posted on Facebook an image of a woman in a car trunk with the title: “Wanna know who loves you more your wife or your dog? Lock them both in your trunk and see who’s happy to see you when let them out (sic).”

And in June, Lucas posted a letter he wrote to a reporter at the IndyStar advocating arming women, suggesting they learn “how not to be a victim.”

The post was condemned by advocates of domestic violence, prompting Lucas to issue an apology.