This refreshing Comment of the Day by EA Ace AM Golden concludes with a trenchant point: Why does someone need to be reading Ethics Alarms or doing their own research to be properly informed of the context of a news event rather than misled by selective reporting?

I should have included the historical precedents for the recent Trump White House decision to exercise its own discretion over what news organizations and other news sources should be included in briefings, but my point was that it didn’t matter what the “precedent” was because today’s news media and the unethical way they have covered this particular President have no valid precedents. However, AM’s perfectly illustrated point is equally important: as usual, the news media is framing anything Trump does as a “threat to democracy” rather than giving the public the information it needs to make up their own minds.

Once I read AM’s COTD, I was even more disgusted with the New York Times than I usually am. Pure deceit: the piece says that it’s a “decades long” precedent to not pick and choose among news organizations, see, so if AM’s precedents are waved in the Times editors’ smug faces, they can say, “Well, those examples were still many decades ago, so what we wrote is correct!”

But even if the Times reporters and lazy editors had been aware of the precedents AM reveals (I’d bet anything that they didn’t bother to check), they still wouldn’t have mentioned them because Trump is following the examples of two revered figures, one of them on Mt. Rushmore and the other unanimously regarded as our greatest President in the last hundred years.

And just to preempt the usual excuse that self-banned Times defender “A Friend” would typically post until I sent the comment to Spam Hell, those Times readers who are the reliable epitome of erudition, fairness and oversight saving the biased Times from itself, I checked all the nearly 2000 comments to the news story. Most agreed that Trump is an aspiring dictator, but not a single one mentioned the Roosevelts.

Here is AM Golden’s illuminating Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Verdict: Justified, Necessary, and Ethical”…

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Furthermore, it is not unprecedented for a President to set terms and conditions for reporters to have access to him

Theodore Roosevelt made it clear from the get-go (Please read the whole thing, but the relevant part is below) that this would be his attitude, as this article makes clear. Read it all, but here is its core:

“According to one source, he put Keen to the test right away by using the meeting to deliver a scathing indictment of the old guard in his party. “If you even hint where you got it,” Roosevelt warned when he had finished, “I’ll say you are a damned liar.” He would do more than that. Roosevelt told the wire representatives that a reporter who violated his trust would be mercilessly cut off from further access to news. He would even take
steps to deny legitimate news to the paper or agency that employed the offending reporter. The ground rules could not have been made more clear. “All right, gentlemen, now we understand each other,” the president said in adjourning the meeting.

Roosevelt proved to be as good as his word over the next seven years. He divided newsmen into distinct groups of insiders and outsiders, and was unforgiving in banishing those that he felt, justifiably or not, had betrayed him. The order went out consigning them to the Ananias Club, named after the New Testament character who, having lied about holding back part of a gift to the Church, was rebuked by Peter and fell dead. Members of the club -and their numbers grew by the years – were dead in the eyes of the White House.”

In his first press conference after becoming President, FDR echoed his famous cousin (and wife’s uncle) by warning journalists, “Then there are two other matters we will talk about: The first is ‘background information,’ which means material which can be used by all of you on your own authority and responsibility, not to be attributed to the White House, because I do not want to have to revive the Ananias Club.”

“Then the second thing is the ‘off the record’ information which means, of course, confidential information which is given only to those who attend the conference. Now there is one thing I want to say right now about which I think you will go along with me. I want to ask you not to repeat this ‘off the record’ confidential information either to your own editors or to your associates who are not here; because there is always the danger that, while you people may not violate the rule, somebody may forget to say, “This is off the record and confidential,” and the other party may use it in a story. That is to say, it is not to be used and not to be told to those fellows who happen not to come around to the conference. In other words, it is only for those present.”

We can debate whether or not it is right or ethical for a President to set terms for favored press outlets, to give information to one over the other, etc. But President Trump is hardly the first Chief Executive to limit access to the White House or even the first to limit access based on what they write about the President

These are just two relatively modern examples, including both a Republican and a Democratic icon.

Of course, a modern, technologically-astute press with an interest in informing the public would be able explain this; however, much of the modern press is bent on turning President Trump into The Other. Letting readers know about this easily available Presidential history conflicts with their narrative.