By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--June 20, 2017
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I'm going to be consistent on my position when it comes to the First Amendment and the press: The press has the freedom to say whatever it wants (unless it's libelous or slanderous, of course). It doesn't have the right to be given access or accommodation by those it seeks to cover. Generally I think that if someone wants to cover you as part of a news story, you're better off working with them than refusing, but there are times when a news outlet is so patently biased and unfair - as happened last summer with the Trump campaign and the Washington Post - there's no point in trying to work with them.
You can criticize it as a media relations strategy, but it wasn't a violation of the First Amendment.The Washington Free Beacon was told by Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff's campaign that it was not welcome to cover remarks that he was scheduled to deliver to supporters on the night before Tuesday's special election. The Free Beacon was approached immediately upon entering Ossoff's Monday night event by Ossoff spokesperson Sacha Haworth, who proceeded to escort the reporter out of the event. Asked why the Free Beacon was being restricted from covering the event, Haworth said, "Thank you very much for your interest in covering our race." Asked why the Free Beacon wasn't being allowed to cover the race despite its interest, Haworth said, "Thank you very much for your interest in covering our race." The Ossoff campaign has previously declined to provide the Free Beacon with information on the campaign's schedule.
Numerous reporters gathered inside the campaign office for Ossoff's speech, during which he said that "politics does not have to be about … division," according to the Associated Press, one of the outlets granted access to the event. It is unclear whether any other outlets were restricted from covering the event. Ossoff's campaign declined to answer whether any other outlets had been barred.We're all familiar by now with the left's attempt to paint conservative-leaning sites as "fake news." In their minds, they come off as inconsistent if they tar sites like the Free Beacon as fake and yet treat them as worthy of press credentials for their events. But the "fake news" label doesn't fit the Free Beacon. It's engages in good reporting and offers thoughtful analysis that is many steps above the mindless partisanship you find on some of the cheap knockoff sites out there. Indeed, one of the things the Beacon does especially well is dig down and report things going on in Washington that the mainstream press either ignores or doesn't understand the significance of.
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