NEW YORK–(ENEWSPF)–November 21, 2016
One day after Trump took to Twitter to grouse that Saturday Night Live was making fun of him and ask whether he’d be getting “equal time,” an off-the-record meeting is being held in Trump Tower.
Executives and anchors from the country’s five biggest television networks are set to meet with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower on Monday afternoon.The meeting was organized by Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who is now a senior adviser to Trump.
Since the meeting is off the record we won’t have a clue as to why the networks were summoned. It may be to read them the riot act for treating him poorly. It may be to lay down the law going forward—what things the networks must do to gain access, and what things they must not. It may be a friendly get-together to get to know the neighborhood fake news promoter, Steve Bannon. It may be to go down the list of do’s and do nots when it comes to photographing the new president’s hairpiece.
This meeting is notable, as President-elect Trump hasn’t held even a single news conference to answer press questions—another break with precedent—and there’s, well, questions as to whether he will be adhering to any of the other conventions we expect of our presidents.
There are many looming questions about whether Trump will provide the same levels of press access that past presidents have permitted, like a traveling “press pool” and regular news conferences.
Well sure. Part of being a self-declared super genius is deciding that the ethical conventions meant to provide at least some small measure of accountability and transparency to the public are no longer needed for you, because the public only needs to know what you tell them they need to know.
This will be interesting, and at least one test of how beholden the networks are to upholding Trump’s new order as opposed to their own journalistic conventions. Let’s see how long it will take for the contents of this meeting to leak out.
Source: http://dailykos.com
