Political journalists have boycotted a briefing at No 10 Downing Street after one of Boris Johnson’s aides banned selected reporters from attending.Imagine if there'd been a similar response to this:
The walkout took place after a confrontation inside No 10 in which Lee Cain, Johnson’s most senior communications adviser, tried to exclude reporters from the Mirror, i, HuffPost, PoliticsHome, Independent and others.
Reporters on the invited list were asked to stand on one side of a rug in the foyer of No 10, while those not allowed in were asked by security to stand on the other side.
After Cain told the banned journalists to leave, the rest of the journalists decided to walk out collectively rather than allow Downing Street to choose who scrutinises and reports on the government.
Among those who refused the briefing and walked out were the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, ITV’s Robert Peston and political journalists from Sky News, the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Sun, Financial Times and Guardian.
The briefing ... did not happen because of the walkout.
The tactics from No 10 mirror those of Donald Trump in the US, who has been known to try to exclude journalists from reporting on his activities....
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s quarrel with NPR escalated on Monday after one of the radio network’s reporters was barred from flying on the secretary’s plane during an upcoming trip to Ukraine.There was no walkout when Kelemen was banned. To be fair, there was a strongly worded statement -- but like all strongly worded statements directed at Republicans, it had no impact at all.
Michele Kelemen, a veteran reporter for the network, was removed from the list of reporters allowed to fly with Pompeo on a trip to Eastern Europe, only days after the secretary reportedly exploded at another NPR reporter for asking questions about Ukraine....
The [State Department] correspondents association concluded that the exclusion was in retaliation for a testy exchange between Pompeo and NPR host Mary Louise Kelly on Friday morning. During a roughly 10-minute interview, Kelly asked Pompeo a number of questions on U.S. policy in Iran and on Pompeo’s involvement in the Ukraine scandal at the center of President Donald Trump’s impeachment. Kelly asked whether Pompeo owed an apology to former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch for her unceremonious ouster from her post in Ukraine....
Pompeo responded tersely and reportedly met with Kelly afterward behind closed doors, yelling at her for asking questions about Ukraine.
“He was not happy to have been questioned about Ukraine,” Kelly recounted on NPR. “He asked, ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’ He used the F-word in that sentence and many others.”
Update: The State Department has removed @NPR correspondent @michelekelemen from Secretary Pompeo's plane for his upcoming trip to Europe and Central Asia following Pompeo's criticism of his NPR interview. Statement from the State Department Correspondents' Association: pic.twitter.com/PW1Ykcu30r
— Robbie Gramer (@RobbieGramer) January 27, 2020
You can't have "a respectful, professional relationship" with an administration that hates you if you're not supine. The American media needs to develop some self-respect and stand up for itself.
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