(Video) Sean Spicer Bans Media From Briefing, Jake Tapper Is Furious and Social Media Fires Back
Social media was on fire Friday after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer blocked several news outlets from attending Friday’s press briefing at the White House shortly after President Donald Trump’s CPAC speech which mentioned mainstream media’s shortcomings.
Among those banned from the briefing were The New York Times, The Hill, Politico, BuzzFeed, the Daily Mail, BBC, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Daily News.
The briefing was held without those news organizations in Spicer’s West Wing office in an off-camera “gaggle.”
Breitbart, the Washington Times and One America News Network were all admitted into the “gaggle.” Several major mainstream news organizations were also granted entry into the meeting which included ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Reuters, Bloomberg and McClatchy.
The Associated Press and Time magazine were invited to attend but refused in a show of support to those organizations who were not invited.
The White House Correspondents’ Association issued a statement indicating they were “protesting strongly against how today’s gaggle is being handled by the White House.”
Jeff Mason, the association’s president had this to say:
“We encourage the organizations that were allowed in to share the material with others in the press corps who were not. The board will be discussing this further with White House staff.”
The ban came hours after President Donald Trump spoke at CPAC stating:
“A few days ago, I called the fake news ‘the enemy of the people’, and they are. They are the enemy of the people. Because they have no sources. They just make them up where there are none.”
Trump finished his statement about the press by saying that he would “do something about it.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper was quick to respond to the media ban and he had a lot to say.:
A White House that has had some difficulty telling the truth and that has seemed to have trouble getting up to speed on the basic competent functioning of government, and a president who seems particularly averse to any criticism and has called the press the ‘enemies of the American people,’ they are taking the next step in attempting to avoid checks and balances and accountability.
It’s not acceptable. In fact, it’s petulant and indicative of a lack of basic understanding of how an adult White House functions. In fact, Sean Spicer in December seemed to completely understand this. He said the White House would not ban any media organization as the Trump campaign had. He said, ‘we have a respect for the press when it comes to the government. That is something you can’t ban an entity from — Conservative, Liberal or otherwise. I think that’s what makes a Democracy a democracy versus a dictatorship.’
“The Trump White House now led by Sean Spicer’s White House operation in the communications division is now targeting multiple media organizations and it seems to think it can punish reporters for sharing with you facts they don’t like,” he continued, citing a video of President Trump from the CPAC convention Friday. “They offer rhetoric designed to mislead and confuse you about those issues, such as this from the president today.” (citing the statement Trump had made earlier about fake news)
“It’s just simply not true,” Tapper added. “So don’t misunderstand what’s going on with that rhetoric, and with today’s action banning various media outlets including CNN, the New York Times.”
“This White House does not seem to respect the idea of accountability,” he concluded. “This White House does not seem to value an independent press. There is a word for that line of thinking. The word, is ‘un-American.’”
Social media, never one to sit quietly, had a few things of their own to say in response and they didn’t hold back. Here are just a few tweets for #FreedomOfThePress.:
Texas Lone Star tweeted to CNN:
Raven tweeted about alleged death threats from a journalists:
ScottInSC tweeted about the press’s silence when Hillary Clinton roped the press off:
Mark Romano remarked about there being no First Amendment right to lie:
Bruce Porter, Jr. tweeted about “Freedom to Oppress” by the media:
