4 ms·

Do you also oppose the US President holding press conferences for privately owned broadcast TV channels?

by ed312 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
calvinmorrison 6y ago
or that CPAN is a non-profit run by the networks to bring you full realtime video access into the senate, congress etc?
tacostakohashi 6y ago
I can live with it if there's a pool of such channels and a system for sharing access across them, which is more or less the case for white house press conferences. If the president were to just pick one favorite channel and only ever be interviewed by them and have them as the only invitee for press conferences, then no.
cle 6y ago
I'm not. There's a natural scarcity of space for physical cameras and reporters. As far as I understand, the press themselves are largely responsible for figuring out these logistics via the WHCA. (Someone please correct me if I'm mistaken.) There isn't any practical scarcity for text streams coming from the White House though, so I can't think of a reason why consuming them should be tied to a closed platform like Twitter, other than marginal costs of setting up and operating the infrastructure (perhaps not so marginal once we start talking about government contracts?).
- SllX 6y ago
  Your point is good but I think the reality is just really mundane: the government could put out its own text streams and multi-publish them to different platforms, but it’s just not there yet. There’s no fire under anyone’s ass to get it done, if it’s even occurred to anyone in a position to do something about it in the past uh... 14 years? However I would be fully on board with Twitter banning world leaders and IP blocking their capitals including the entire city of Washington. They won’t, that’s a value destroying proposition, but a man can dream.
- Analemma_ 6y ago
  Twitter isn't "a closed platform" in the sense that is relevant here. If I want to read the President's tweets without a Twitter account, I can.
  - cle 6y ago
    That's not the sense that I was using, and I don't think it's a relevant point either. What's important IMO is that the platform and the data are not controlled by elected officials.
  - wutbrodo 6y ago
    Well, sort of. Not if they remove it. The fact that they (mostly) haven't exercised this control so far over world leaders' tweets is a matter of internal policy at Twitter.
dehrmann 6y ago
PBS, NPR, the BBC, and Al Jazeera all have seats in the White House press room.
SkyBelow 6y ago
I think it is reasonable as long as there are barriers for consumption and people can be selectively limited in their ability to interact with the broadcasts. Maybe if Twitter was brought in as a government contractor, including the inability to restrict people from interacting with government tweets and accounts (any non-government entities would fall under the private business side of things and not be included in this restriction) then I think it would be reasonable for the government to use Twitter.
barbazoo 6y ago
Given that the list of organisations [0] consists of public and private ones, your statement reads somewhat disingenuous to me. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_press_corps https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_press_corps
randcraw 6y ago
Yes. But I'd go further. All holders of US political office at all levels should be unable to restrict any conference or interview in which they take part to any single interviewer or news agency, so they cannot control who asks the questions or who airs the event. For several decades, US Presidents have been able to avoid hard questions by cherry picking interviewers or networks in order to "massage their message". That isn't news and it shirks their responsibility to answer hard questions. Tweets are just the next step in the evolution of accountability avoidance. We did away with royal proclamations long ago for damned good reason: you must answer to the people.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

Do you also oppose the US President holding press conferences for privately owned broadcast TV channels?

by ed312 6y ago

Do you also oppose the US President holding press conferences for privately owned broadcast TV channels?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

calvinmorrison 6y ago

or that CPAN is a non-profit run by the networks to bring you full realtime video access into the senate, congress etc?

tacostakohashi 6y ago

I can live with it if there's a pool of such channels and a system for sharing access across them, which is more or less the case for white house press conferences. If the president were to just pick one favorite channel and only ever be interviewed by them and have them as the only invitee for press conferences, then no.

cle 6y ago

I'm not. There's a natural scarcity of space for physical cameras and reporters. As far as I understand, the press themselves are largely responsible for figuring out these logistics via the WHCA. (Someone please correct me if I'm mistaken.) There isn't any practical scarcity for text streams coming from the White House though, so I can't think of a reason why consuming them should be tied to a closed platform like Twitter, other than marginal costs of setting up and operating the infrastructure (perhaps not so marginal once we start talking about government contracts?).

SllX 6y ago
Your point is good but I think the reality is just really mundane: the government could put out its own text streams and multi-publish them to different platforms, but it’s just not there yet. There’s no fire under anyone’s ass to get it done, if it’s even occurred to anyone in a position to do something about it in the past uh... 14 years? However I would be fully on board with Twitter banning world leaders and IP blocking their capitals including the entire city of Washington. They won’t, that’s a value destroying proposition, but a man can dream.
Analemma_ 6y ago
Twitter isn't "a closed platform" in the sense that is relevant here. If I want to read the President's tweets without a Twitter account, I can.
- cle 6y ago
  That's not the sense that I was using, and I don't think it's a relevant point either. What's important IMO is that the platform and the data are not controlled by elected officials.
- wutbrodo 6y ago
  Well, sort of. Not if they remove it. The fact that they (mostly) haven't exercised this control so far over world leaders' tweets is a matter of internal policy at Twitter.

dehrmann 6y ago

PBS, NPR, the BBC, and Al Jazeera all have seats in the White House press room.

SkyBelow 6y ago

I think it is reasonable as long as there are barriers for consumption and people can be selectively limited in their ability to interact with the broadcasts. Maybe if Twitter was brought in as a government contractor, including the inability to restrict people from interacting with government tweets and accounts (any non-government entities would fall under the private business side of things and not be included in this restriction) then I think it would be reasonable for the government to use Twitter.

barbazoo 6y ago

Given that the list of organisations [0] consists of public and private ones, your statement reads somewhat disingenuous to me. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_press_corps https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_press_corps

randcraw 6y ago

Yes. But I'd go further. All holders of US political office at all levels should be unable to restrict any conference or interview in which they take part to any single interviewer or news agency, so they cannot control who asks the questions or who airs the event. For several decades, US Presidents have been able to avoid hard questions by cherry picking interviewers or networks in order to "massage their message". That isn't news and it shirks their responsibility to answer hard questions. Tweets are just the next step in the evolution of accountability avoidance. We did away with royal proclamations long ago for damned good reason: you must answer to the people.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]