As Monday’s throwdown in the White House press room made clear, relations between the President and the press corps are as bad as they have ever been during the Trump administration.
Most journalists seem to put the blame on the administration’s criticisms of the press, with CNN’s Chris Cilizza saying Press Secretary Sarah Sanders’ condemnations were “disheartening” and made him “angry.” A couple of weeks ago, disgraced ex-CBS anchor Dan Rather called the President’s attacks on the news media “disappointing.”
“If you look over the arc of history,” Rather lectured MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle in late November, “presidents who have been very hostile to the press have not wound up very good in terms of having their likeness carved into Mt. Rushmore or anything approaching that….You know that old cliche, if you’re in a hole, stop digging. In terms of his press relations, he just keeps digging.”
This week, Rather repeated his complaint to the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart. “A free, a truly free and independent, fiercely independent press, when necessary, is the red beating heart of freedom and democracy,” Rather pontificated, saying of Trump’s attacks: “This has to be unacceptable.”
Read More at Newsbusters.
