Politico’s Jack Shafer has a new article up titled, “Why Republicans Will Regret Icing Out the Press.”
The opener:
Republicans are fed up to their eyeballs with journalists, as three political writers reported early this week, and they intend to freeze them out of the 2024 presidential campaign and beyond. In a case of multiple discovery paralleling the simultaneous and independent invention of calculus by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, David Freedlander of New York magazine, Charlotte Klein of Vanity Fair and David Weigel of the Washington Post alighted on the theory that modern Republicans now have nothing but blind eyes and deaf ears for the press.
Pegging their pieces to the brush-off Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is currently giving to the mainstream press — who even refused to cooperate with the New Yorker for a recent profile — the pieces conclude that Republicans figure nothing good comes from talking to the press, so why bother? Take the easy path by speaking with friendly conservative outlets, their thinking goes, and depend on social media and their own podcasts to reach the masses. Even President Barack Obama, no Republican he, saw the good politics in freezing the press out.
In other words “If you stop talking to us, we’ll turn on you, start smearing you and will only say bad things about you”:
"If you stop talking to us, we'll turn on you, start smearing you and will only say bad things about you"
A series pic.twitter.com/1lA2mBWhoF
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) July 28, 2022
We’ll go out on a limb here and suggest Republicans WILL NOT “regret icing out the press”:
"You need us!" They screamed as they accuse the right of murdering gays and women.
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) July 28, 2022
And here’s Christina Pushaw explaining to Shafer the *real* reason her boss doesn’t talk to the press:
Hi @jackshafer! FYI, you are wrong about the reason @GovRonDeSantis doesn’t talk to liberal media, including Politico. He isn’t worried about “negative press”; you’re always negative.
It’s just that he doesn’t care.
And he doesn’t want to give you clicks or ratings. pic.twitter.com/MwCCfYN8Ye
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) July 28, 2022
And BOOM:
As a media reporter for Politico, I am sure @jackshafer understands why we wouldn’t “cooperate with the New Yorker”. @GovRonDeSantis giving them an interview would’ve allowed a liberal activist to break news, self promote, and make money off #DeSantisForClicks. We aren’t playing. pic.twitter.com/a50m1BXn7w
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) July 28, 2022
Mainstream media, “your gatekeeper days are over”:
Sorry @jackshafer but no, we don’t need this. Media get MORE obsessive when we don’t talk to them.
Nobody trusts “mainstream” media anymore. Everyone uses social media.
Also, @GovRonDeSantis does press conferences and TV channels in FL live stream. Your gatekeeper days are over pic.twitter.com/wYPjJX6Xf4
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) July 28, 2022
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