CNN Guest Shoots Down ‘Hysterical’ Media Whining Trump Silent with Press

Nicholas Fondacaro | March 12, 2017
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Each weekend, CNN airs another edition of Reliable Sources where “ridiculous figure” and host Brian Stelter labels President Donald Trump an authoritarian dictator and whines about his war on the media, but on Sunday things were a little bit different. Yes, Stelter continued to bemoan Trump, but this time he got pushback from The Baltimore Sun’s media critic David Zurawik. “One of the things that surprises me about the coverage so far of Trump, is it's a constant friction,” he argued while noting that the media’s complaining has reached a near “hysterical” level.

“It's supposed to be that way. A push and pull and back and forth between the presidency and the White House [Press Pool],” he continued, explaining that it was normal for a president and the press to have a little tug-o-war, “That's what makes the Saturday Night Live skit with the podium that moves such brilliant satire, because that's literally them butting heads and pushing back against one another.”

He eventually lamented that the media’s reaction to the White House’s pushback was over the top. “But with Trump, the thing is, that people have taken it to this extreme thing and almost gotten hysterical about it every time they push back,” he said.

The reason this came up for discussion was because Stelter had taken umbrage with the President refusing to talk to the press in recent days:

Just halfway through his first 100 days in office, something has changed. Is the President becoming press shy? Let's look at numbers. It's been 25 days since his last press conference. It's been 13 days since his last TV interview and three days since he used Twitter to take a swipe at the press. It's actually been longer than that. When you look at his tweets in terms of his actual tone, his tenor attacking news outlets. He has changed his tune. So this week the White House seemed to be limiting his availability to the press. Allowing photo ops but discouraging questions.

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