Donald Trump reminds me of a school yard bully you would expect to encounter at a grade school. For one thing, he always tries to rule by fear and intimidation. Secondly, it doesn't take much to get his knickers wadded should any one dare correct him, or make a joke about him. Third, he does not like when journalists pose challenging questions he cannot answer. These behaviors are frequently repeated by our 34 count felon president; it is a perpetual problem for this moron on a daily basis.
Donald Trump is preventing certain media organizations or reporters from attending White House press briefings. Reuters, the Associated Press, and Huffpost are just some of the major news organizations which are no longer allowed to grace press briefings by the new Trump Administration. Recently, the rouge administration announced which news organizations would be allowed to cover particular events--a highly selective process. Prohibiting certain media organizations is indeed censorship and it is highly characteristic of authoritarian governments like we see in China and Russia.
Trump's childish behavior and impish brain went into a tizzy because a reporter from the Associated Press refused to say "Gulf of America", as opposed to stating what world maps and our United States geographical maps have declared for years, "the Gulf of Mexico". For Trump, Gulf of Mexico sounds perhaps too "brown", no doubt for this seething racist. The Associated Press has filed a lawsuit, and I so hope they win it! The First Amendment guarantees "freedom of speech", a phrase you will often hear by Trump and Elon Musk while they hiss to "protect" their frequent tirades of racist rhetoric.
Should a reporter really want to make Trump sweat, ask the president and his motley crew questions about Russia. In 2018, the White House banned journalist Katlin Collins from CNN news from specific press conferences, after asking questions which were deemed "inappropriate". True to our president's character, the same formula of censoring journalists has followed again into his second administration. And media organizations are taking note of the ever increasing hostile climate exhibited towards journalists.
There is a real danger to this pattern, of dictating which news organizations and which particular journalists can, and more importantly, cannot cover press events and news conferences. In a most mysterious fashion, a reporter from TASS, a Russian news agency was present during the orchestrated debacle between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and J.D. Vance and Trump on February 28, 2025. Politco states in one article "“TASS was not on the approved list of media for today’s pool,” a White House official said. “As soon as it came to the attention of press office staff that he was in the Oval, he was escorted out by the Press Secretary. He is not on the approved list for the press conference.”
Any news organization exposing elements contrary to Donald Trumps ideology, or appearing "critical" of his administration for simply stating the facts, will swiftly be characterized by Trump and his Republican allies as "fake news". Trump, on the surface, is always advocating for free speech, however, he attempts to stifle Freedom of the Press at his discretion. This is totally contradictory. Furthermore, he has continuously stoked coals among MAGA supporters by declaring the press as "enemy of the people".
Trump has waged war through the courts, aiming his ire at CBS, ABC, and others. The president recently settled a lawsuit with ABC News, regarding a televised interview between George Stephanopoulos and Representative Nancy Mace. The segment which aired on ABC discussed elements of Eugene Caroll's successful civil suit concerning sexual assault and the dispute basically revolved around "semantics". CBS News was also hit with a lawsuit because of a 60 Minutes interview which featured Kamala Harris. After the episode aired, Donald Trump claimed the episode was edited to Harris's benefit.
What I have noticed and so many other people as well; the major networks have become fearful (or perhaps biased) in reporting the ongoings of the Trump administration. Even before Trump won, people were noticing news worthy stories exposing some of Trump's outlandish statements were not being reported by the major networks. One event which stands salient in my mind is when Trump met with right wing Christian evangelicals and stated to the crowd "in four years, you don't have to vote again, we'll have it fixed so good you're not going to have to vote."
It is my opinion, the better sources for news are now actually on YouTube and other news websites, as opposed to ABC, CBS, NBC news. And its very obvious that MSNBC has a major shakeup going on, recently cutting several on air programs, all headed by hosts of color. A good deal of the decision making is apparently being influenced by corporate ownership of these stations.
The things we are witnessing in the United States of America correspond to the activities of authoritarian governments. Trump, like other dictators such as Vladimir Putin of Russian and Kim Jong Un of North Korea, will take steps to keep tight reins on the media. We can only expect censorship and the stifling of the First Amendment privileges will further increase as Trump continues to abuse his executive powers.
