Journalism organizations that heretofore pooled resources in order to cover Presidential events that occurred in venues lacking space for all of the journalists have chosen to refuse to cover President Donald Trump’s (R) small-venue events in response to Trump’s decision to bar three of their number from the White House press pool over those three’s dishonest reporting on administration matters. (Notice that: the bar is over dishonest news reporting, not over opinionating and commentary, as the pressmen have been arguing, thereby demonstrating the reporting dishonesty being sanctioned.)
“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting,” the pool members, FOX News Media, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and NBC News, said in a joint statement.
That’s just it, though. CNN‘s, MS NOW‘s, and Politico‘s news reporting has long been dishonest, and they’re not alone; they’re just the most egregious. That dishonesty begins with refusing to report all of the news—all of the facts underlying a news story—which is nothing more than lying by omission. This is a technique the broadcast outlets use especially broadly (viz., spiking the Hunter Biden laptop revelations of the New York Post). The outlets’ dishonesty extends to writing/broadcasting unattributed rumors—sourced to “anonymous,” or to “officials familiar,” even to mere “persons familiar.” That leaves us in their revered public with no means to check on those sources in order to evaluate for ourselves those sources’ qualifications on the subject matter, much less their actual presence in the alleged discussions. We can’t even evaluate whether those sources actually exist or if they do whether their claims are being accurately reported.
Overarching all of that is my long-standing question. Years ago, editors required at least two on-the-record sources to corroborate anonymously sourced claims. Journalists have long since walked away from that requirement, raising the obvious question: what concrete, measurable, publicly accessible standard of journalistic integrity do today’s journalists use instead?
Journalists’ silence on that question is a loud, clear answer.
In the end, Trump is right: journalists have no intrinsic right to enter the White House. They have all kinds of sources and means of ferreting out news regarding the administration and its doings without being inside an office building, however big a deal the building might be. If nothing else, they can interact with their anonymous sources and officials/persons familiar as those folks come and go from the office building.