Trump hosts media summit for top journalists and execs

Illegal, no.

Catastrophically bad and completely unethical, yes.

Unethical to make a mistake?

when a news source claims to support one person or idea, I do expect them too give said person or idea in favorable light.
But I do not expect them to color facts. state them. Let us the readers make up our own mind.

So when the weatherman tells you it's gonna be sunny, but it pours rain and you forgot your umbrella, do you advocate shutting down the news station because it's clearly biased towards sunny days?

What are you even talking about, gul? Did you eat a lot of paint chips as a kid or something?

And you get to make that call, and decide which media you want to consume, support, or replace. The President does not get to make that call for you, nor to use his powers of office to go after media he dislikes.

Agree - Trump played the media. He pimp-slapped the shit out of them. The general public has lost all credibility in them. He should have tapped a beer keg at that meeting to show his gratitude. He should not try to shut them up - he should encourage them to go off the deep end even faster! I don't really think this is a smart strategy for Trump, but think about this....maybe he is trying to really piss them off knowing that they will fight fire with fire and really lay into him. They will be so wrapped around the axle & tripping over themselves to besmirch him it will be a perfect distraction so he can focus on real issues with little opposition. You never know with that guy - he's "smarter than he looks" as they say. I do think he should stay off Twitter and any social media platform - but his out of control behavior in this arena could be a red herring too....who knows? He has a pretty good "feel" about people in general - as evident by his victory!

Him and millions of other liberal voters!

Don't you have some crosses that need burning?

I did not read in the opening statement that Trump was pulling the plug or telling who to watch for my news source. I read that he basically called them on their bias when they were supposedly "just reporting the news." If there is more to that story from a source not taken to task by Trump, I have not seen that.
OF COURSE the ones that were raked over the coals are going to complain about the "bad treatment" he gave them. Haven't your kids done the same thing when you scolded them?
If this is what it takes to make the reporters go back to being reporters such as Murrow, Cronkite and others in that era, who manage to keep their personal leanings out of the report but let it leech into the editorial, then so be it.
When I read a news story, I want facts; not suggestions, not personal opinions. When I read an editorial, I expect suggestions and personal opinions.

Jesus, it isn't even January yet and this clown has already won the thinnest skinned President award. I hope white, unambitious class America is looking forward to years of Twitter wars.

The great thing is, you libtards are cutting your own throats and don't even know it. You've been doing it since at least 2009--possibly as far back as 2000. And the more you bleed, the more you cut. Enjoy President Pence in 2024. They'll have streaming Breitbart in the Reeducation camps.

You get to discipline your kids. Some guy down the street doesn't. And the President doesn't get to scold the media. Assuming he has the authority of a father over his kids when it comes to the Fourth Estate is a perfect example of what authoritarianism and paternalism means.

And why would you think that anything Trump does to the media will make them more honest? Everything the man says is a lie. This daddy ain't gonna give you goodies for telling the truth. That's not what he's after.

It's amazing how many people are totally cool with state controlled media. Every day brings new surprises.

Among other things.

This from the guy who, not long ago, was acting like Trump had no way of getting a message to people other than a "60 Minutes" interview.

This is how democracy dies.

Even after he trounced all the Republican candidates. Even after he defeated Hillary. Even after almost two years of watching him do it . . . you guys still don't get it. Trump plays the media like Kenny G plays the clarinet. It's all Trump, all the time, because Trump likes it that way. The press won't be "controlled," they'll be encouraged to follow their own idiotic practices and give him more, more, more because it will sell advertising time. You guys on the left are worried about overt state media and Putin-style control but Trump is just pulling strings and watching the puppets dance their entirely predictable steps.

I think Trump is a horrible person and will be a desperately bad President, but God-DAMN he's good at promoting himself.

What you're describing is extremely similar to the media system Putin has set up during the last decade. He doesn't have formally state-controlled media either (though their PBS is larger and more important).

Are you seriously comparing the coverage of the Presidential election by the entire mainstream media to a single weather forecast? The former is a wee bit more consequential than the latter.

Also, weather forecasters do not report on the weather in the hopes of altering it. There's not much agenda to push with a weather report, but how would you react if you learned your weatherman was forecasting rainy days with an agenda of keeping you from going to the beach?

Finally, I'm not advocating shutting anything down. I'm suggesting that trust in the mainstream media may be misplaced. And more Americans than ever are agreeing.

The point is that it's not on the government to tell us which sources to trust. I would think you, of all people, would get that.

Yeah, that would be horrible.

The point is that the mainstream media is not trustworthy for a large number of Americans. It ignores them and actively works to counter their political expression.

I was trying to draw an analogy with something else the news media attempts to predict, with a lot more frequency. The reality is that the news rarely attempts such predictions, with the exceptions of weather, elections, and financial issues (ranked in order of most scientifically/mathematically-based predictions to least). However, the majority of news coverage is reporting on something after the fact. I don't honestly think that predicting something incorrectly affects news reporting. Certainly, various news organizations have their biases (especially the talking heads on all the cable networks). But real journalism (reporting on issues) is unaffected by the mathematical models that news organizations used to incorrectly predict the election outcome.

That's assuming that every election prediction was made with the agenda of pushing a candidate. The predictions not based on any mathematical model, sure I could see an agenda there. But the predictions made using mathematical models that had largely been accurate until this year? I don't think that implies an agenda, I think that implies the opposite.

Perhaps I was too quick to assume that was what you were advocating, my apologies. How exactly is the mainstream media defined? Is it based on readership/viewership? Are you referring to cable news networks? Broadcast news shows? Radio? Newspapers? Magazines? Blogs?

Certainly none of the cable news networks are very credible (MSNBC, FOX News, CNN) because they all have blatant biases. And because they have to fill 24 hours of time, they just fill it with a load of crap and "opinion" journalism. Broadcast news shows (local news, PBS Newshour, Nightly News, etc.) are slightly more credible given that they have to report on stories in a condensed format. Thus there is a better chance that the stories have had more time to be researched, vetted, and edited. I would say for the most part, major national and international newspapers are still reliable. To a certain extent, actual radio news reporting is quite good, again for the same reasons as broadcast news. The trick is filtering out any talking-head opinion garbage.

I would say for the most part, major national and international newspapers are still reliable. There are some biases on display in the Op-Ed sections, but for the most part are reliable.

Magazines and blogs should never be relied on for news, anyway.

FOX News included.

No, that is not the point. That would become the point if anyone was forced to consume their product. As long as they aren't, it is up to that majority of Americans to decide which media they want to trust (and that's exactly what they've done), not the President.

Are we going to pretend that openly voicing criticism, an exercise in free speech, is the same as abusing governmental power to pressure media outlets behind closed doors?

Um, exactly how was Trump abusing governmental power when he has less of it than a city dog catcher who can impound your pooch?

Yea, that went well.