James Rosen: Obama Treated Media Worse Than Trump
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Despite labeling the reporting of many news stories as 'fake' and calling the media and 'enemy of the American people' on Twitter, Fox News Chief Washington Correspondent James Rosen says nothing Donald Trump has done so far rises to the level of concern he had while Barack Obama served in the White House.
Rosen recounted, in an interview with Rich Zeoli on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, the battle he had with the Obama administration over his reporting on North Korea where he was eventually investigated by the Department of Justice.
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"Literally, in writing declared me an enemy of the state by designating me as a criminal co-conspirator in an alleged violation of the Espionage Act. That was done in a secret FBI search warrant application submitted to and accepted and approved by a federal judge. Attorney General Holder later acknowledged that he personally signed off on that document and he later identified it as the greatest regret of his tenure. Nothing that we've seen so far from the Trump administration, at least yet, rises to that level of seriousness or nature in terms of any kind of attack or assault on the press."
He also stated that Obama significantly limited access of the media to him in ways that previous Presidents had not.
"President Obama really circumscribed access on the part of the press to him. Sometimes, even having only a White House photographer present on certain occasions and the rest of us having to rely on the White House photograph. President Obama had far fewer news conferences than George W Bush and immediate predecessors did. When President Trump holds a news conference, as we've seen, it will go for 78 minutes and take questions, just about, from everybody."
Rosen did admit, however, that many of the errors the Trump team has committed with the media are self-inflicted.
"President Trump and his aides create some of their own problems with the news media by seeking to propound things that aren't true, such as the size of the inaugural crowd or the relative size of his electoral college victory compared to Ronald Reagan's and so forth. These are quite small and unnecessary factual assertions that turn out not to be true."