"This decision to bar a member of the press is retaliatory in nature and not indicative of an open and free press."My response to that is so what. The position of journalists by contrast is clear. How dare anyone "retaliate" against them. They're granted carte blanche, in their own minds, to do as they please without consequence. They're permitted by "freedom of the press" to trash the president (or anyone for that matter) all day long and he is obligated to receive and entertain them anyway.
Fox clearly thinks it's making some glorious stand on principle by siding with CNN, but I have ever asserted the president has all the same rights as any other citizen, and one of those is the right to dissociate. As stated previously on my social media.
"If (journalists) can't behave themselves, then kick them out. The President is not required to meet with journalists. It's a courtesy; one that can, and frankly should, be rescinded given the ostentatious animus these pricks all have for the president. Donald Trump is the duly elected president of the United States whether you like it or not. These press briefings are not dinner parties where you can dispense your opinions unfettered. They're not stages for dissidents to engage in political grandstanding or activism. If these people cannot maintain the proper decorum then they should be ejected and their passes should be revoked." - Me, June 29, 2018.The president has a right to defend himself from unscrupulous journalists and fallacious reporting. And one of the ways he may do so, as may any of you, is to simply dissociate from them. Trump has apparently done exactly what I said he should. So, bravo. He should listen to me more often.
Coincidentally Fox's president, Jay Wallace, would also use the word "unfettered," but to argue the complete opposite point.
"We stand in strong solidarity with CNN for the right to full access for our journalists as part of a free and unfettered press."So according to Wallace for a press to be "free" it must be "unfettered," and an irrevocable component of that freedom, is journalists having a "right to full access" to the president.
As promptly observed on my social media, the first presidential press conference wasn't until 1913 (124 years after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution), and the first televised presidential press conference wasn't until 1955 (166 years after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution). For a large chunk of American history journalists didn't even cover the president. It wasn't until 1895 (106 years after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution), during the administration of Grover Cleveland, that William Price became "the first newsman to wait outside of the White House to interview people after their meetings with the president." There wasn't a White House Press Secretary until 1929, when George Akerson was appointed as the first by Herbert Hoover.
The fact is there are more presidents who weren't covered by the press than presidents that have been. Even fewer had "press secretaries." This simple historical observation renders the claim Trump's crossing a "dangerous line" for banning a CNN correspondent from a press conference, and that the press has a "right to full access for [...] journalists as part of a free and unfettered press," utterly farcical. By that rationale the first 25 presidents not only crossed that line but resided on the other side of it. Modern press conferences are a product of modern presidents realizing that proactively interacting with the press, and therefore giving them access, was in the interest of their administrations; not out of any obligation to respect a journalist's imaginary "right" to "full" and "unfettered" access. The very notion is preposterous. No right is "unfettered." All rights have limitations. It's generally understood that one person's rights terminate, for example, at the point they infringe upon the rights of another. The notion the press is granted by the First Amendment unfettered access to a person essentially renders the First Amendment an abolition of privacy.
But don't take my word for it. Let's hear what some other, notable Americans, have to say about the press.
"If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating, and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it when our legislators shall please so to alter the law, and shall cheerfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others for the privilege of not being abused myself." - Benjamin Franklin, September 12, 1789.
"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misapprehension is known only to those who are in a situation to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day. [....] General facts may indeed be collected from them [...] but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false." - Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, June 14, 1807.
"I hope it will be no offense to say, that public opinion is often formed upon imperfect, partial, and false information from the press. [...] What sort of men have had the conduct of the presses in the United States for the last thirty years? [...] How many presses, how many newspapers have been directed by vagabonds, fugitives from a bailiff, a pillory, or a halter in Europe?" - John Adams to John Taylor, April 15, 1814.Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice appointed by James Madison, also provides protracted exposition on the freedom of the press in his treatise on the Constitution. He describes a press that is far from "unfettered."
"That this (first) amendment was intended to secure to every citizen an absolute right to speak, or write, or print, whatever he might please, without any responsibility, public or private, therefore, is a supposition too wild to be indulged by any reasonable man. That would be, to allow every citizen a right to destroy, at his pleasure, the reputation, the peace, the property, and even the personal safety of every other citizen. A man might then, out of mere malice or revenge, accuse another of infamous crimes; might excite against him the indignation of all his fellow citizens by the most atrocious calumnies; might disturb, nay, overturn his domestic peace, and embitter his domestic affections; might inflict the most distressing punishments upon the weak, the timid, and the innocent; might prejudice all the civil, political, and private rights of another; and might stir up sedition, rebellion, and even treason, against the government itself, in the wantonness of his passions, or the corruptions of his heart. Civil society could not go on under such circumstances. Men would be obliged to resort to private vengeance to make up for the deficiencies of the law. It is plain, then, that this amendment imports no more, than that every man shall have a right to speak, write, and print his opinions upon any subject whatsoever, without any prior restraint, so always that he does not injure any other person in his rights, property, or personal reputation; and so always that he does not thereby disturb the public peace, or attempt to subvert the government. It is in fact designed to guard against those abuses of power, by which, in some foreign governments, men are not permitted to speak upon political subjects, or to write or publish any thing without the express license of the government for that purpose. [...]
Even to this day, in some foreign countries, it is a crime to speak on any subject, religious, philosophical, or political, what is contrary to the received opinions of the government, or the institutions of the country, however laudable may be the design, and however virtuous may be the motive. [...] In some countries, no works can be printed at all, whether of science, or literature, or philosophy, without the previous approbation of the government; and the press has been shackled, and compelled to speak only in the timid language, which the cringing courtier, or the capricious inquisitor, has been willing to license for publication. [....]
There is a good deal of loose reasoning on the subject of the liberty of the press, as if its inviolability were constitutionally such, that, like the King of England, it could do no wrong, and was free from every inquiry, and afforded a perfect sanctuary for every abuse; that, in short, it implied a despotic sovereignty to do every sort of wrong, without the slightest accountability to private or public justice. Such a notion is too extravagant to be held by any sound constitutional lawyer, with regard to the rights and duties belonging to governments generally, or to the state governments in particular. If it were admitted to be correct, it might be justly affirmed, that the liberty of the press was incompatible with the permanent existence of any free government. Mr. Justice Blackstone has remarked, that the liberty of the press, properly understood, is essential to the nature of a free state; but that this consists in laying no previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter, when published."Someone will likely try to draw a distinction between Story's exposition and what Trump did. Story is talking about libel, and Fox News is talking about "access," they might say. Once again, there wasn't a journalist regularly covering the president until over a century (and 24 presidents) after the Founding, and that journalist didn't even have direct access much less "unfettered" access to the president or his administration. Some years later "Theodore Roosevelt saw Price standing in the rain on a cold day and arranged for a small room to be provided for him inside the White House. That was the start of the White House Press Room." So the "right to full/unfettered access" to the president, just like the right to say and print whatever they please with no regard for its veracity or ramifications, is a myth naturally derived from journalists themselves. (As they stand most to benefit from its belief.) As is the notion Trump is the only or first president to ever have an aversion to the press.
What began as a gesture of kindness (and perhaps self-interest to some degree) from one president a century ago, is now a den of integrity bereft partisans and subversives who conspicuously believe their role and duty as "journalists" is to ruin the current president, for which purpose they claim "full" and "unfettered" access as their "right." Even if that's not the case with all of them, we may reasonably surmise that even those of them with the best of intentions, seek access purely in the hope of getting a scoop for their agency. Something that, while perhaps not deliberately wicked, is hardly meritorious. A journalist in the "Amanda Knox" documentary, Nick Pisa, articulates with incredible candor what motivates modern journalists. And it's not accurate reporting.
As you can see Nick is really torn up about the part he played in ruining a woman's life; slightly chuckling, as he recollects with an audible flippancy (if not fondness), the lies journalists like him perpetuated across the globe. Or to borrow Story's language the part he played to accuse another of infamous crimes that excited against her the indignation of all her fellow citizens. Nick is the epitome of the kind of men Adams claimed ran the presses in his day, but like pretty much every other journalist probably thinks it all justified by virtue of the profession itself. (Apparently not much has changed on that front in 200 years.)
As story makes explicitly clear, in depth and at length, the freedom secured to the press by the Constitution is a freedom from government imposed preconditions on what they report or publish. He explicitly refers to an "unfettered" press as "despotic" and "incompatible with free government." (A journalist's "right to full access" to the president is nowhere mentioned and patently preposterous.) Franklin (who owned a newspaper) states he'd rather part with the freedom of the press altogether than be subjected to its abuses.
"A declaration that the federal government will never restrain the presses from printing any thing they please, will not take away the liability of the printers for false facts printed." - Thomas Jefferson, to James Madison, July 31, 1788.In conclusion Donald Trump is not, by barring Kaitlan Collins from a press event, imposing preconditions on or controlling what the press may report. Donald Trump is not, by barring Kaitlan Collins from a press event, passing a law that abridges the freedom of the press. And since we're on the topic of the freedom of the press, the First Amendment only prohibits congress from doing such, not the president. The president not being conferred any legislative power by the Constitution, is fundamentally incapable of "making laws" that abridge the freedom of the press, at least so long as the government is operating in accordance with that document.
Chalk this up to another instance of leftists claiming a violation of imaginary rights they don't have.
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