Donald Trump escalates war on media: Increasing assaults on the press putting reporters in a no-win situation
"If anything, there’s reason to worry that the Trump campaign is simply going to double down on the strategy of intimidating journalists in hopes of sycophantic coverage. After all, the strategy worked like a charm when it came to Breitbart. After initially seeming torn, the website quickly shifted towards choosing snuggle time with Trump over their basic duty to protect reporters. (Their duty to the truth was abandoned before the site was even launched, alas.) Six staff members have left, citing the way that Breitbart undermined Fields until she was compelled to leave as the reason. Browbeating Breitbart into bootlicking the Trump campaign is just going to encourage the campaign to engage in intimidation even more. Schreckinger’s ouster isn’t the first time the campaign has tried to control and silence reporters. The Trump campaign, obviously trying to limit reporter access to supporters who have a tendency to reflect poorly on the campaign, has been herding reporters into press pens and monitoring their movements so closely that reporters aren’t even allowed to go to the bathroom without an escort. Photographer Chris Morris alleges that a Secret Service agent choked him rather than let him out of the press pen, an incident captured on video. A CBS reporter who was trying to cover a violent incident at the Chicago rally found himself arrested instead. A Sun Sentinel reporter says he was thrown out of a Dayton event for being on the floor with supporters rather than herded in the press pen. It’s clear that Trump believes reporters are there to be stenographers instead of reporters, and scarily, he’s getting some law enforcement to back him up on his hostility to the press."
