White House Correspondents Insider

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

David Cameron Tells Trump “Fake News” Act is Dangerous

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Photo courtesy Pixabay.

At the annual Transparency International UK lecture in London, former British prime minister David Cameron called President Donald Trump’s attacks on the mainstream media was dangerous, with the true threat to democracy coming from sources like Russian twitter bots.

“When Donald Trump uses the term ‘fake news’ to describe CNN and the BBC, that is not just a questionable tactic.  It’s actually dangerous,” the former prime minister said in his remarks.

Cameron noted that “of course” journalists occasionally makes mistakes. But Trump’s use of “fake news” as an attack on the media “is an attempt to question the whole legitimacy of organizations that have an important role in our democracy.”

“Let me put it like this. President Trump, ‘Fake news’ is not broadcasters criticizing you. It’s Russian bots and trolls targeting your democracy, pumping out untrue stories day after day, night after night.”

“When you misappropriate the term ‘fake news’,” he continued, “you are deflecting attention from real abuses. Ignoring what’s happening on social media is facilitating a form of corruption that is undermining democracy.”

Cameron resigned as prime minister in 2016, immediately after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in their “Brexit” vote, which Cameron opposed.  Many point to the similarities between the surge in nationalistic movements surrounding the Brexit vote and the 2016 U.S. presidential elections that placed Trump in the White House.

 

Kremlin Considers Trump’s Tweets as Official White House Statements

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Photo courtesy Pixabay

The Kremlin has acknowledged that Russian President Vladimir Putin reads tweets posted by President Donald Trump, and the Russian government considers them to be official positions of the administration.

Spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed his government’s stance in a statement.

“In any case, everything which is published from [Trump’s] authorized Twitter account is perceived by Moscow as his official statement… Naturally, it is reported to Putin along with other information about official statements by politicians.”

Trump regularly posts on Twitter to make official policy announcements and also to appeal to his base of supporters and vent frustrations at those with whom he disagrees, including the media and lawmakers.

The president has frequently been criticized about his tweets, including criticizing U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May after a sharp rebuke following his retweeting videos originally posted by ultra-nationalists in the United Kingdom suggesting violence against Muslims.

Trump also recently lashed out at Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) in a tweet saying she “would do anything for [campaign contributions]” after the Senator called for his resignation following “credible” and “numerous” allegations of sexual harassment against Trump.

Washington Post Reporter Apologizes to President Trump for Posting Inaccurate Photos on Twitter

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Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

President Donald Trump has received an apology from Washington Post reporter David Weigel, who posted a photo of Trump’s rally in Florida on Friday.

Weigel had posted a photo on Twitter of the crowd at the Pensacola Bay Center showing a significant number of empty seats.  After being told that the photo was taken before the venue started, Weigel removed the post and apologized in a later Tweet with the president.

In response to the apology, the president demanded Weigel be fired.

The Washington Post issued a statement on Weigel’s erronious Tweet on Saturday:

“Dave Weigel relied on an inaccurate image in tweeting about President Trump’s rally in Pensacola,” said Washington Post’s vice president of communications, Kristine Coratti Kelly. “When others pointed out the mistake to Weigel, he quickly deleted the tweet. And when he was later addressed by the president on Twitter, he promptly apologized for it.”

Media Stars Support Non-Profit Journalism On #GivingNewsDay

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Fox News Bret Baier and Wolf Blitzer in Washington, DC

November 28th is #GivingNewsDay, a day to give back to the hundreds of nonprofit newsrooms across the country. Donations up to $1000 will be doubled by NewsMatch, a national campaign to support nonprofit, local, and investigative news organizations. News Match 2017 was launched by Democracy Fund, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation to give people an easy way to find quality newsrooms in their region.

Thousands have already gone on social media to promote and discuss nonprofit news, as well as encouraging others to join in this year’s efforts.

Visit NewsMatch.org to find a nonprofit newsroom and invest in quality journalism. NewsMatch will double your impact.

Greta van Susteren Launches New “Sorry” App, Authors New Book

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Greta Van Susteren at the 2017 Garden Brunch. Photo courtesy Haddad Media.

The legendary Greta van Susteren has been keeping a busy schedule since departing MSNBC last summer.

Six-time inductee on Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women in the World, van Susteren released a free app today entitled Sorry that lets users accept or reject apologies from friends, as well as vote on public statements from politicians, celebrities, businesses and others.

“SNAPCHAP AND INSTAGRAM are about to get some competition! This will be fun and hopefully get us all thinking…” van Susteren posted on Facebook last week, announcing her newest project.

She has worked on developing Sorry since leaving Fox News last September, and suggests it could be used to gauge reactions to some of the 475,000 apologies issued on social media every day.

“Chances are you may need my new APP (at least once in a while) or know someone who does need it (and maybe more than once in a while!),” she added on Facebook.  “I know I have needed this APP.”

People that have downloaded Sorry will be able to accept or reject apologies sent by friends and acquaintances privately through the app.

Users also can vote on apologies and statements by public figures issued through the media or posted on social media.  For example, as van Susteren notes, “imagine if you and everyone else got to vote ‘accept or reject’ when Kathy Griffin apologized” (after posting a photo of herself with a severed head of President Donald Trump last May).

In addition to releasing her app, van Susteren has authored a new book, “Everything You Need to Know About Social Media (Without Having to Call a Kid),” published by Simon & Schuster.

“[Van Susteren] does an admirable job of covering the basics of a handful of social media channels in this practical guide…. Readers who are curious about (but are still hesitant to use) social media will likely find Van Susteren’s advice helpful,” reviewed Publishers Weekly.

Van Susteren’s app is available on iTunes here or Google Play here.  And you can purchase her latest book on Amazon here.

High Profile Alt-Right Blogger Unmasked as Russian Troll

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Photo courtesy Pixabay

A high-profile, controversial alt-right blogger that had 70,000 Twitter followers has been unmasked as a fictional “troll” maintained by the Russian government.

Congressional investigators, with cooperation from social media companies, has confirmed Abrams was a creation of the Internet Research Agency, the Russian government’s “troll farm” in St. Petersburg.

Jenna Abrams was branded as a free-thinking American blogger promoting a return to segregation and lamenting problems stemming from “PC culture” running rampant in the nation.  Her account gained significant notoriety after “fixing” a nude photograph posted by Kim Kardashian.

On her Medium account, the Internet Research Agency published a blog post entitled “Why do we need to get back to segregation.”

“Humanity has gone full circle.  Never mind how many activists of any color died to get rid of segregation, and fought for inclusion, black people want it back.  100 percent free people made their choice, and their choice is segregation,” the fictional Russian blogger wrote.

Her posts and tweets received attention from nearly every national media outlet, including U.S. News and World Report, USA Today, The Washington Post, BBC, and The New York Times.  Her comments were also covered by Russian government-funded media outlets Russia Today and Sputnik.

Even former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul engaged Abrams in arguments on Twitter.  During the timeframe of February 2015 through August 2016, McFaul responded to Abrams’ posts on at least ten separate occassions.

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.

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.”

New York Times Establishes Social Media Guidelines for Journalists

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Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

The New York Times issued guidelines for its reporters on their social media accounts, including warnings to “not to express partisan opinions” or “promote political views.”

Executive director Dean Baquet wrote in a memo that “[i]n social media posts, our journalists must not express partisan opinions, promote political views, endorse candidates, make offensive comments or do anything else that undercuts The Times’ journalistic reputation.”

“We consider all social media activity by our journalists to come under this policy. While you may think that your Facebook page, Twitter feed, Instagram, Snapchat or other social media accounts are private zones, separate from your role at The Times, in fact everything we post or ‘like’ online is to some degree public. And everything we do in public is likely to be associated with The Times,” the memo warns.

The memo follows a panel discussion at George Washington University where Baquet said his journalists need to be consistent in their comments on social media.

“I feel pretty strongly that New York Times journalists should not be able to say anything on social media that they cannot say either in the pages or in any of the platforms of The New York Times.”

The memo also includes guidelines for reporters to be transparent and open about errors in their reporting, and to reflect “a diverse collection of viewpoints” to avoid looking like any side is preferred in public discussions, especially in retweeting other people’s comments and thoughts.