Why is most everyone in the press ignoring that the Dictator is not having press conferences?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

It is how he gets away with what he does - he doesn't stand up and answer the hard questions. and, I am not talking the staged "copter" conferences, where the public can't hear the questions and he gets to free associate. And trust me, if Trump wanted them to start warming up the copters 10 minutes later, he would.

Here's something we all could do. Write/tweet/call your favorite host on CNN, MSNBC, liberal radio, liberal websites, and papers. Ask them to mention this every day at the start of their show or other media! Ask TV to put a scroll on the bottom of their screen with a running total of the number of days since a conference. No biggie - could add to their news line. At least it would help us feel like we are doing something to restore some semblance of democracy !

This, my friends is how you get his attention, via the media.

BRAVO to WaPo - they track it and it has been 837.3 days since Trump held a press conference ! this is appalling ! It is dictatorial. McCain warned against dismantling of free press.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/politics/trumps-last-press-conference/2140/

[msongs]

1. the british press willl not kiss his butt and like it the way the american press does nt

[Laura PourMeADrink]

2. You would think they would see value in it. Like CNN

- affecting a change in his behavior. Hell aren't they proponents of the Free press? What about those journalists that got their WH press privileges taken a week or two ago? Can't believe that wasn't bigger news.

[guillaumeb]

3. The US corporate media values access above substance.

GOP politicians can basically lie with no fear of being confronted as long as they agree to appear.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

4. Yet I can see if they would make a big deal about trump not having pressers, and

actually run/broadcast a tally, it would boost ratings. People love tallies And, I bet at least 75% of the general public have no clue he isn't even doing them. Sure, it may not benefit the particular media that much - but just think about how much it would benefit all the american public and our cause. Might have to shame them into it?

[guillaumeb]

15. I agree with your analysis.

But in my view, the problem is core to the fact that the US media is profit driven and corporate owned.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

17. Agreed G. Guess there's a few exceptions, but agree.

[gratuitous]

5. 30 seconds at the beginning of every nightly newscast

"Today marks the 838th consecutive day that President Trump hasn't held a press conference." Quick, accurate, and to the point.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

8. LOVE IT - who knows, may spur journalists to remember the tenets of their profession.

[a kennedy]

6. They did have a news conference tho......

after tRump and May had their love fest....they did take four questions..... 2 from the UK press....and 2 from the USA’s press.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

7. Yes, he LOVES it when he's got a world leader in tandem. Then he can brush off or

make it look like they are rude not to ask about the pertinent country.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

10. VERY HEAVY, tonight, from an AFP journalist (international, headquartered in France)

Link to tweet

[ilmare2000]

11. They did a countdown for Hillary!

Remember in 2016 they were counting the days since candidate Clinton held a news conference?! Of course they freaked out over that nonsense but now they don't care about Trump doing it.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

12. Yes, party of hypocrisy! Yet if I supported Trump I wouldn't

Want him to speak either

But seriously, it is ON US to demand it and scream it out loud. And why the press doesn't seems inexplicable despite the corporate shill meme. It's their profession!

Two things I see that trump backers do not like about him is are his inane tweeting and the treatment of kids at the border.
If we could ask him questions, those issues could be raised for exposure... since deplorables hear what he says?

[DFW]

13. I think the world press is used to something at this point

And that something is that if Trump WERE to give a press conference, he would....

1. Lie
2. Make incomprehensible statements
3. Come out with unintentionally creative combinations of #1 and #2

[Laura PourMeADrink]

14. For sure. Yet I still find it curious that for those

journalists that have spent their lives seeking truth, would just cave so easily. Especially when they are witnessing a crazed autocrat who never ever has to answer a question. There were times when a journalist would risk it all for that. At minimum, expose that he won't answer a question and that he lies


Are you still spending a lot of time in Europe?

[DFW]

20. My father was just such a print journalist

He died in November, 2000, and was already lamenting the ugly direction in which his profession seemed headed.

I have since moved to Europe full time (October, 2011), to my immense financial detriment. Coming to you tonight live and in color from cold and rainy Sprout City (Brussels). But the commuting from Dallas got to be just too much wear and tear, and I do get to see a lot more of my wife this way. It may seem exotic from afar to visit Zürich, Paris, Barcelona and Brussels (e.g.) in a week, but it's nicer that they are now just day trips, and I can sleep in my own bed most nights--tonight excepted. Düsseldorf is very centrally located, both as a train station and an airport, and our little medieval town outside the city center has basically everything we want. California Peggy or Steve 2470 can fill you in on details as seen from a US point of view of you like. They are the only DUers who have visited us at our home.

I keep my nearly useless US health insurance (BCBS) because the Germans quoted me €2500 a MONTH, or about $35,000 a year, for health insurance, and that was the best quote I could find here. Kind of above my pay grade. It seems pre-existing conditions figure largely in their calculations, and them I got (cardiac, in my case)! The double-taxation treaty between Germany and the USA is a document they treat with about as much respect as Trump treats agreements with other countries, so a goodly part of my income is currently taxed at 90% (40% USA and another 50% in Germany). This is being disputed, of course, as being contrary to the treaty. This has gone for seven years already without resolution! My wife, being a German citizen who is now over 65, has no such health insurance worries, which is good, since she has had two long and serious--though so far victorious--battles with cancer. Her health insurance cost me a small fortune between the time she retired (at age 60) and the time she turned 65--about €450 a month, or about $6500 a year, but now as a senior citizen, she is again covered here after a five year gap. Her pension (€850 a month) sucks (that'll teach you to be a social worker!) but my salary supplements it sufficiently so far. At 67, I figure I'll retire sometime in the next 15 years unless I keel over from exhaustion first. It beats dying of boredom anyway.

[Cetacea]

23. +1000

That was the same time period that I became disillusioned and soon left after the way 2000 election was reported...

[DFW]

24. My dad did that his whole professional life

He graduated from Columbia Journalism in 1947, took a job as a cub reporter for a paper in a right wing one-horse town in 1948, and they when they made the daring move to open a one-man correspondant's bureau in Washington in 1950, they offered it to him at age 28.

His mom had always been politically active. She was fired from her post as city liason to labor by NYC mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Her "offense" was being too close to labor for the mayor's liking. She then became a fund-raiser for the Senate race of the mayor of Minneapolis (guy named Hubert Humphrey). His dad was even deputy mayor of NYC for a while. My dad loved his job, and stuck with it until cancer felled him.

Even while dying at home at age 78, he noticed that the Clinton White House had proposed a cost-saving measure (so they thought) to reduce the amount of coverage Medicare paid for outpatient visits from 95% to 85%. As one who knew exactly what that meant, even in his weakened condition, he had the energy and the clout to arrange a conference call with himself, the White House and Sen. Moynihan (D-NY) and laid out for them that the move would only encourage outpatient visits to become more fully covered (and far more expensive) in-patient visits. The proposal was scrapped. His farewell column to his readers appeared nine days before he died. I think after that, if he had seen what became of journalism in the USA for the most part, that would have killed him anyway. Some of his (and therefore our) old friends--notably Helen Thomas--held out far longer than he did, but they were the exceptions, and no longer the rule.

[Cetacea]

25. Thanks

It is obvious that you have a good deal of love and admiration for them. I am sorry for your loss.
One of my big regrets is having been too depressed to attend an award ceremony in which Helen Thomas was the keynoter. I didn't even bother to collect them.

We could certainly use all of the people you wrote about. I don;t think the senate ever recovered from the loss of Moynihan in particular.

[DFW]

29. Pat was a very colorful character

He never hesitated to play the hard-drinking Irishman. At the Gridiron Club Dinner in 1995, he sat across from me, downing one after another, and even before the speeches, he got so soused that he went up to the speaker's podium (right at the end of our table), jumped up right in front of Bill Clinton's Secret Service agent and grabbed Clinton's speech off the podium before anyone realized what Moynihan was up to. The speech was quickly recovered (I didn't see by whom, a LOT of people chased after him in no time flat), and I think Clinton gave the Secret Service guy an earful for letting Moynihan get anywhere close.

In retrospect, it was rather funny, but it's a good thing Moynihan was well-known to the Secret Service guys. Anyone unknown to them jumping up unexpectedly right next to the President might have fared less well if they had been completely unknown to Clinton's bodyguards.

[JHB]

16. Because that would be "partisan"

[KY_EnviroGuy]

18. Why, you ask? It's because....

their greedy right-wing boards of directors dictate them to stay silent and shake out max profits from entertainment value. Press conferences are dull and boring and interrupt the good stuff like Happy Days reruns.

Sensationalism, star power, fun with conspiracy theories, lack of interest in context or research, media company cost cutting and mergers and a brain-dead complacent American public set the environment of mainstream media today. Mostly a pathetic waste of perfectly good electrons.

I default to The Guardian UK International Edition each morning and have ever since they started listing Trump's lies each week during the 2016 campaign. Not perfect but they are self-supporting and about as good as I can find in this era.

..........

[MasonDreams]

19. 1st.they came for the journalists, then I don't know what happened.

[SunSeeker]

21. K & R

[CanonRay]

26. Because all he does is lie anyway?

So what's the point. The less I hear him talk, the happier I am.

[dlk]

27. The American Press is Absolutely Terrified of Losing Access-They Overlook Much to Keep it

When for-profit corporations own the majority of media outlets and many independent newspapers have gone out of business, the primary goal is to make money, as opposed to factually reporting events. Is it truly a free press in this circumstance?

[greatauntoftriplets]

28. CNN refers to that fact fairly often.