LIST: 11 Times Obama Abused Freedom Of The Press
Brian Thomas | Saturday, December 1, 2018 -- 1:46 PM EST
***Uploaded by CitizensDawn and Last updated on Sunday, December 2, 2018 -- 3:00 PM EST***
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Trump has merely criticized innaccurate and misleading reporting as well as the protesters in the press pool. Obama spied on the press as well as his political opponents...

***Article first published by 'The Federalist Papers' on February 18, 2017***

While the media lambastes President Trump for choosing which questions he will or will not take at press conferences, a growing number of leftists think Trump is shutting down the First Amendment, and that Trump is unique in his approach to the press.

They’ve forgotten history.

President Trump may infuriate liberals by avoiding questions he feels are too confrontational, but freedom of the press doesn’t mean freedom of uninterrupted forced interrogation.

Trump has a LONG way to go to catch up with his predecessor.

Breitbart posted 11 times Former President Obama abused the freedom of the press.

Here’s their list:

1. Campaign plane “hijacking” journalists. In 2008, the Obama campaign flew 25 members of the media to Chicago — without telling them then-Sen. Obama was not, in fact, on board. CNN reported: “[T]he press was essentially held hostage with no candidate and no choice but to fly to Chicago on a chartered plane.”

2. Closing White House events to all but the official photographer. Obama barred the media from events — including, ironically, an award ceremony where he was recognized for “transparency” — and often restricted photographers’ access, only releasing images taken by the official White House photographer.

3. Trying to shut out Fox News. The Obama administration targeted Fox News for isolation and marginalization, arguing that it was not a legitimate news organization but “the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.” That served as a warning to other potentially critical outlets.

4. Stonewalling FOIA requests. The Obama administration “set a record” for failing to provide information requested by the press and the public under the Freedom of Information Act. The low point was Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, where tens of thousands of emails were hidden on a private server and deleted.

5. Prosecuting journalists and their sources. The Obama administration pursued Fox News reporter James Rosen’s private emails — then misled Congress about it. CNN’s Jake Tapper — to his credit — pointed out that Obama had used the Espionage Act against leakers more than all of his predecessors combined.

6. Wiretapping the Associated Press. After the Obama administration’s snooping on the AP was exposed in 2013, a senior NBC correspondent excused President Obama on the grounds that he would not have been nasty enough to alienate “one of the president’s most important constituencies, the press.”

7. Refusing to hold press conferences. For long stretches of his presidency, Obama refused to hold press conferences at all, going 10 months without a formal press conference in a critical stretch from 2009 to 2010. He heeled the lowest average annual number of press conferences of any president since Ronald Reagan.

8. Filibustering at press conferences. When Obama did, finally, hold press conference, he often limited the number of questions by delivering long, rambling, often condescending answers. He “wastes reporters’ time by refraining from answering questions with any candor,” Jack Shafer complained in Politico in 2016.

9. Attacking tough questions. When a Major Garrett of CBS actually asked a tough question — about why the administration seemed not to be trying hard to free Americans held by Iran, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian — Obama scolded him: “Major, that’s nonsense, and you should know better.”

10. Appearing on fringe outlets. While media elites gripe about conservative journalists being given a chance, Obama often restricted his appearances to fringe media: Inside Edition; Funny or Die’s Between Two Ferns (which was then nominated for an Emmy); YouTube stars; and a radio show called “Pimp with a Limp.”

11. Iran deal “echo chamber.” The Obama administration created “fake news” to support the Iran deal, setting up what it later boasted was an “echo chamber” of “experts” who would comment in the media to support the White House narrative on the negotiations. Meanwhile, key details were hidden from the public.

Obama did all this and more, and was still heralded, mostly by himself, as a “transparent” president, offering a “handful of issues” as the only exception to his “most transparent administration in history.”

Benghazi, according to Obama, was blown out of proportion due to campaigns, along with everything else negative to be said about the administration’s supposed “transparency.”

It seems that by Obama’s standards of press relations, Trump would have to try very hard to earn the reputation mainstream media is already forcing on him.

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