NY Times - In late August, during one of Karoline Leavitt’s final meetings with President Trump in the Oval Office, he pitched her on an idea in front of several senior aides. He told her to move reporters out of the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, which would effectively remove news organizations from the White House. It would be, he told her, her “last legacy.”
But the proposal never moved
forward while she was there. The president had put the request to her several
times over months, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions
who were not authorized to speak publicly. Ms. Leavitt officially stepped down
as White House press secretary on Aug. 27.
Mr. Trump has told aides he would
prefer to bring back the indoor pool President Franklin D. Roosevelt added in
1933 as therapy for his polio-afflicted legs; President Richard Nixon later
covered it over to make room for the news media. Journalists who are
credentialed to cover the White House work out of a small office space
connected to the press briefing room.
While moving the media out of the
White House may be a relatively small debate considering Mr. Trump’s attacks on
journalists more broadly, it would be highly symbolic. The proximity of the
media to the seat of U.S. executive power has long been an acknowledgment of
the importance of a free press in a constitutional democracy.
No comments:
Post a Comment