One of the more disparaging aspects of Trump’s campaign has been the way he has treated the media. The fourth estate has never been so antagonized and attacked by a presidential candidate before Donald Trump came along. The Republican hopeful has even go so far as to deny requests for press credentials at events, just so the media can’t “say horrible things about him.”
It should be noted that “say horrible things about him” actually means “largely quote him directly.”
But with new leaders in place, Donald Trump’s campaign for the White House has taken on a new face, albeit slightly. But at least the press is allowed to attend again.
Effective Thursday, the media can breathe a little easier when it comes to applying for press credentials. Trump isn’t all-out banning the press from events anymore.
Trump’s media blacklisting began last year when his campaign savagely denied requests for press credentials from The Huffington Post and The Des Moines Register. It has since inflated to include the likes of Univision, Buzzfeed, Politico, and The Daily Beast.
The media blacklist has prompted reporters to go into Trump events as civilians. Many of them were caught and subsequently thrown out, including a reporter for Politico who was ejected from a Trump rally in San Jose in June.
The presidential hopeful’s flagrant denial of press credentials to the men and women tasked with holding him accountable for his rhetoric hasn’t gone over well. It hasn’t been just the media scolding Trump for his blacklisting. It has been wildly unpopular with just about everyone and has elicited response from even the likes of Trump’s new campaign management team and his own running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
Let’s not take this to mean Trump will change his tune when it comes to the media. He is expected to remain as standoffish and disrespectful toward reporters as he’s ever been. Honestly, is there any indication he would be any different? At least now he can be aggressive toward a reporter to their faces.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGJqtkEkdMc
Featured image by DonkeyHotey, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.
h/t CNN Money