Tag: First Amendment freedom

New White House press secretary yanked Arizona reporters’ access after critical coverage

Washington Post logoOn April 5, 2016, Hank Stephenson checked his email and saw that he had a new message from Stephanie Grisham. “Attached please find the form that you requested for the cursory background check we have discussed,” Grisham, then the press secretary for the Republican majority in the Arizona House of Representatives, wrote. “Really appreciate everyone’s willingness to work with us.”

Stephenson, who at the time was a reporter for the Arizona Capitol Times, initially hadn’t thought too much about what Grisham claimed was a new security protocol. That was about to change.

“At first it was kind of like, eh, whatever,” he told The Washington Post. “And then, they explained what they would want.”

View the complete June 26 article by Antonia Noori Farzan on The Washington Post website here.

Customs officials admit an officer harassed a BuzzFeed reporter trying to enter the US over the outlet’s Trump coverage

On Sunday, BuzzFeed News’ breaking news deputy director David Mack arrived at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, after traveling to the United Kingdom to renew his U.S. work visa. As a customs officer was processing his passport, he noticed his employer — and began to question him about his paper’s reporting on President Donald Trump.

Mack detailed the incident in a Twitter thread that night:

David Mack

✔@davidmackau

the immigration agent at JFK just saw that i work for buzzfeed and just grilled me for 10 minutes about the cohen story which was fun given he gets to decide whether to let me back into the country

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David Mack

✔@davidmackau

Replying to @davidmackau

he was 100% convinced mueller had personally given a press conference calling us fake news and i had to politely assure him that didn’t happen while also not wanting to piss him off any further

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David Mack

✔@davidmackau

Replying to @davidmackau

the funny part was he first said “oh BuzzFeed, you guys have had a rough time of late, huh” and at first i was like ty for showing so much concern about the layoffs, my good sir

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David Mack

✔@davidmackau

Replying to @davidmackau

anyway there were literally dozens of people waiting and i shit you not he was about to google the mueller response to see if it was televised or at least grill me about it

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David Mack

✔@davidmackau

Replying to @davidmackau

he did ask me repeatedly what if anything the mueller inquiry has done and when i told him about the dozens of charges he said “but no collusion” and i said that’s true but pointed out that like a dozen russians had also been charged with meddling. he was nonplussed about that.

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On Tuesday, BuzzFeed reported that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Assistant Commissioner for Public Affairs Andrew Meehan personally called Mack to apologize and promise that they would launch a full investigation into the officer’s conduct.

“On behalf of the agency, I would like to extend our apologies to Mr. David Mack for the inappropriate remarks made to him during his CBP processing upon his arrival to the United States,” Meehan told BuzzFeed. “The officer’s comments do not reflect CBP’s commitment to integrity and professionalism of its workforce. In response to this incident, CBP immediately reviewed the event and has initiated the appropriate personnel inquiry and action.”