The President's Power to Shut Down National Enquirer Articles

Hatuey said:

Given the president's admitted power to shut down National Enquirer articles which are harmful to people he sees as opponents, will this make you less likely to trust his relationship with media figures supporting him? In the past the NE has run various stories attacking Trump opponents in the primaries. He now admitted that he holds sway over which stories they print and which ones they do not.

Will you continue to trust news organizations who support the president given his admitted influence over which stories are printed?

:lol:

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OlNate said:

Voted no, but really, who actually uses the National Enquirer as a reliable news source? lol ...

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Hatuey said:

Will you continue to trust news organizations who support the president given his admitted influence over which stories are printed?

:lol:

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Hatuey said:

Given the president's admitted power to shut down National Enquirer articles which are harmful to people he sees as opponents, will this make you less likely to trust his relationship with media figures supporting him? In the past the NE has run various stories attacking Trump opponents in the primaries. He now admitted that he holds sway over which stories they print and which ones they do not.

Will you continue to trust news organizations who support the president given his admitted influence over which stories are printed?

:lol:

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Captain Adverse said:

Where is the basic citation? I don't know what this story is about.

What "power to shut down" does the President have? None that I know of.

Was it a friendship with the publisher you are talking about? If so, then any person of influence can use said influence to effect action.

For example, the Veritas videos and a simple knowledge of CNN broadcasts over the last six months show that whoever controls CNN is pushing their agenda with fake news to a much larger audience than National Enquirer can claim.

You still trust such news organizations? :coffeepap:

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Hatuey said:

Given the president's admitted power to shut down National Enquirer articles which are harmful to people he sees as opponents, will this make you less likely to trust his relationship with media figures supporting him? In the past the NE has run various stories attacking Trump opponents in the primaries. He now admitted that he holds sway over which stories they print and which ones they do not.

Will you continue to trust news organizations who support the president given his admitted influence over which stories are printed?

:lol:

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Hatuey said:

Given the president's admitted power to shut down National Enquirer articles which are harmful to people he sees as opponents, will this make you less likely to trust his relationship with media figures supporting him? In the past the NE has run various stories attacking Trump opponents in the primaries. He now admitted that he holds sway over which stories they print and which ones they do not.

Will you continue to trust news organizations who support the president given his admitted influence over which stories are printed?

:lol:

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MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski say President Trump and his White House used the possibility of a hit piece in the National Enquirer to threaten them and change their news coverage.

President Trump has a very different account of what happened. "FAKE NEWS," he tweeted during "Morning Joe" Friday morning.
But Scarborough says he has proof of White House threats earlier this year -- he replied to Trump and said "I have texts from your top aides and phone records."

And an NBC News spokesman told CNN that Scarborough kept several executives apprised of the alleged threats "contemporaneously." This may bolster Scarborough's stunning claim.

Scarborough and Brzezinski are essentially alleging a form of blackmail. The accusation came during a wider discussion about the president's offensive tweets targeting the co-hosts.

But a White House official suggested to CNN that nothing untoward had occurred. The official told CNN that Scarborough called Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, about the Enquirer story before it was published. Kushner, the official said, told Scarborough to call the president. The official denied there was ever any offer from Kushner of a quid pro quo -- in other words softer coverage in exchange for spiking the Enquirer story.
The White House has yet to comment publicly.

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Cardinal said:

For those who haven't followed the chronology of this story:

'This has to stop': Trump's vulgar tweets bashing 'Morning Joe' host draw the ire of Republican leaders - LA Times

That story was prompted by this series of tweets:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/880408582310776832
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/880410114456465411

The backlash to these tweets resulted in another from Trump:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/880771685460344832, which implies that Trump was the person who stood between a negative article about Joe and Mica being published.

Prompting these responses form Joe Scarborough:

https://twitter.com/JoeNBC/status/880773499408797697
https://twitter.com/JoeNBC/status/880773832663085056

And finally the story about using the National Enquirer:



http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/30/media/national-enquirer-donald-trump-joe-scarborough/index.html

Right now everything is hanging on an exchange of texts that neither MSNBC nor Kushner have chosen to release.

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Captain Adverse said:

Where is the basic citation? I don't know what this story is about.

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Mycroft said:

I must have missed something. Can you give me the quote of Trump admitting he has the power to shut down National Enquirer articles? Thanks.

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Fearandloathing said:

As a former journalist I deplore the existence of National Inquirer, however I deplore the power of a president to shut down any publication, and especially not Trump.

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Cardinal said:

So far as I can tell, anyone justifying the use of the National Enquirer will cite that one time it broke the story that John Edwards had an affair. It's an interesting way to gauge the trustworthiness of a story. Apparently if I lie 99% of the time, all I have to do is refer people to the 1% of the time I told the truth in order to argue that I'm credible.

When a piece is written listing the articles that your favorite publication got right, then maybe you should be searching for a better news vendor.

National Enquirer' Stories That Were True - Business Insider

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Cardinal said:

The issue is whether it's right that the President is using his influence with an outside agency (although any agency would be fine as an example) to effectively exploit/blackmail a news site in order to change their behavior. If the facts as they have been reported to date are true (we're still waiting on the full exchange of texts to verify the charge), then what Trump did could be illegal.

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matchlight said:

What laws do you think he might have violated?

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If President Donald Trump or members of his administration told MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough that a National Enquirer hit piece would be published unless they provided the president with better coverage, that would be a crime, a Harvard law professor said.

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That statute, 18 US Code 872, says: "Whoever, being an officer, or employee of the United States or any department or agency thereof, or representing himself to be or assuming to act as such, under color or pretense of office or employment commits or attempts an act of extortion, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned."

The statute appears to leave open a window for interpretation. One could read it as covering only extortion directly tied to an amount of money, as another line in it specifies the punishment for an official "if the amount so extorted or demanded does not exceed $1,000." But the statute could also be read to cover any possible "act of extortion," and the National Enquirer incident, if true, could fall under that umbrella.

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Extortion and blackmail are similar in concept, but there are differences between the two. Extortion is a form of theft that occurs when an offender obtains money, property, or services from another person through coercion. To constitute coercion, the necessary act can be the threat of violence, destruction of property, or improper government action. Inaction of the testimony or the withholding of testimony in a legal action are also acts that constitute coercion.

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Distinction Between Blackmail and Extortion

Blackmail, in contrast to extortion, is when the offender threatens to reveal information about a victim or his family members that is potentially embarrassing, socially damaging, or incriminating unless a demand for money, property, or services is met. Even if the information is true or actually incriminating, you can still be charged with blackmail if you threaten to reveal it unless the victim meets your demand.

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Hatuey said:

Given the president's admitted power to shut down National Enquirer articles which are harmful to people he sees as opponents, will this make you less likely to trust his relationship with media figures supporting him? In the past the NE has run various stories attacking Trump opponents in the primaries. He now admitted that he holds sway over which stories they print and which ones they do not.

Will you continue to trust news organizations who support the president given his admitted influence over which stories are printed?

:lol:

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Perotista said:

I don't place much trust in the media period. Each news network, each newspaper, magazine, internet blog and report, all have their own agenda, their own biases, they favor or disfavor one or the other party. I'm thinking political here, not sports or the weather. I know enough if I want the news from more or less a Republican or conservative perspective, I tune in FOX. If I want it from a liberal or Democratic perspective, I tune in CNN or MSNBC. The biases are there and as plain as the nose on your face.

Trust in the media in general isn't there among the public as a whole either. Only 32% of all Americans give the media a great deal or a fair amount of trust.

Americans' Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low | Gallup

It's interesting for me to note, that it is the Democrats who have the most trust in the media at 51%. They should, every network leans their way with the exception of FOX. Still, that leaves 49% of Democrats who don't trust the media. Maybe truth and accuracy is more important to them than a political lean or bias. But to round it out, 30% of independents trust the media and only 14% of Republicans.

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