Callum Borchers

For much of the presidential campaign, Donald Trump banned certain media outlets — including The Washington Post, Politico and BuzzFeed — from receiving press credentials at his events. That meant reporters from those news agencies could not watch rallies from designated press areas, which usually include work stations, or take advantage of shorter security lines. They had to sit and wait with everyone else. Sen Richard Burr (R-NC) is taking the blacklist to a new level. He is not merely withholding press passes from the News & Observer of Raleigh; he is refusing to even give the newspaper a schedule of events for his reelection campaign.

The move, according to News & Observer reporter Colin Campbell, is "effectively limiting the newspaper from reporting on Burr’s public appearances." It's tough to cover events you don't know about. While some are well-advertised, "there have been several events we only learned of via Twitter after they had ended," Campbell said. "The Burr campaign had been sending near-daily news releases in early October outlining where Burr would be campaigning, but The N&O stopped receiving those releases in recent weeks," Campbell reported. He said the paper received an email in which Burr's campaign explained that it had "put an embargo on sending you scheduling details until you demonstrate the ability to cover this race from a balanced point of view."

Concerns about a frightening episode in which Mike Pence's campaign plane skidded off the runway while landing at LaGuardia Airport were quickly assuaged, as journalists aboard the aircraft reported that the Republican vice presidential nominee and all passengers were safe. Had Donald Trump's plane been the one in trouble, news might not have gotten out so fast.

Trump continues to relegate the journalists in his press corps to a separate plane, an unorthodox move for a major-party nominee. The arrangement has frustrated reporters at times, such as when Trump refused to charter a press plane for his trip to Mexico in September and when he gleefully told the crowd at a rally in New Hampshire two weeks later that journalists' flight had been delayed by about 30 minutes and that he would not wait for them to arrive. The separation also means that reporters might not be on the scene in the event of an emergency involving one of the nation's most important political figures.

Here is an eye-popping figure: "CNN will make approximately $100 million in television and digital advertising revenues more than it would expect in the typical election year," according to NPR. Just to reiterate: That's not $100 million total; that's $100 million on top of the money CNN would have raked in anyway. As NPR's David Folkenflik wrote, "The network has turned a financial corner thanks to the painstaking initiatives of its chief, Jeff Zucker, and to the unpredictable words of another man not employed by CNN: Donald Trump."

Yes, Trump has been good for some in the media business. This has been obvious since the first debate of the Republican presidential primary, which smashed a cable TV viewership record with an audience of 24 million. Before the second debate, Advertising Age reported that CNN was charging 40 times its normal ad rate for the event.

Donald Trump continued to feed speculation that he will start a television network after Election Day by debuting a nightly webcast on his Facebook page. Also conservative commentator Mark Levin announced his plan to launch Conservative Review TV in December. Meanwhile, the Right Side Broadcasting Network, which has built a loyal following by streaming Trump rallies on YouTube, hopes to add more original programming after the election to become something akin to Glenn Beck's TheBlaze, said the network's founder, Joe Seales. (Of course, Right Side will not be quite like TheBlaze. Seales is a Trump acolyte, but Beck is one of the Republican presidential nominee's harshest critics.)

Then there is post-Roger Ailes Fox News. Anchor Shepard Smith said that network owner Rupert Murdoch “wants to hire a lot more journalists” and build “a massive new newsroom.” “When the biggest boss, who controls everything, comes and says, 'That's what I want to do,' that's the greatest news I've heard in years,” Smith said. “And he didn't mention one thing about our opinion side.” When polls close Nov. 8, the conservative TV landscape could get crowded in a hurry — especially if Trump loses, which he is very likely to do

Donald Trump's presidential campaign is all about American greatness — unless the subject is freedom of the press, in which case the Republican nominee thinks England is much more tremendous than the United States. Trump reiterated his desire to weaken First Amendment protections, a position he staked out in February when he pledged to “open up” libel laws so that public figures, such as himself, can sue and win cases against media companies more easily.

Trump described his vision in greater detail: "Well, in England they have a system where you can actually sue if someone says something wrong. Our press is allowed to say whatever they want and get away with it. And I think we should go to a system where if they do something wrong — I'm a big believer, tremendous believer, of the freedom of the press. Nobody believes it stronger than me, but if they make terrible, terrible mistakes and those mistakes are made on purpose to injure people — I'm not just talking about me; I'm talking anybody else then, yes, I think you should have the ability to sue them," Trump said. "So you'd like the laws to be closer to what they have in England?" he was asked. "Well, in England you have a good chance of winning. And deals are made and apologies are made. Over here, they don't have to apologize. They can say anything they want about you or me, and there doesn't have to be any apology. England has a system where if they are wrong, things happen," Trump said.

On May 18, "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski said Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz "should step down" because she had favored Hillary Clinton over Sen Bernie Sanders (I-VT) throughout the primary. One week later, Brzezinski doubled down, saying, "My contention all along has been that [Wasserman Schultz] has been in the tank for Hillary from the get-go, and it's been quite obvious." The repetition seemed like no big deal at the time, but now hacked DNC e-mails show that in between Wasserman Schultz and her staff flipped out, pressuring MSNBC to make Brzezinski and partner Joe Scarborough tone down their criticism. Clearly, it didn't work.

The WikiLeaks' release of DNC e-mails offers a window into Democrats' relations with the press. In some cases, the view of the media isn't terribly flattering. "This is the LAST straw," Wasserman Schultz wrote to her communications director, Luis Miranda, on the morning that Brzezinski called for her resignation. "Please call Phil a [sic] Griffin. This is outrageous. She needs to apologize."

[Commentary] Whether you loved Sen Ted Cruz's (R-TX) shade-throwing non-endorsement speech at the Republican National Convention or considered it poor sportsmanship, there is no disputing this: It was good television. The cheers, the jeers, the spotlight-stealing entrance by Donald Trump — the whole thing was compelling drama. But such moments are rare in an era of carefully choreographed conventions that often resemble infomercials for the Republican and Democratic parties.

Events that originated as messy nominating contests have become made-for-TV specials with predetermined outcomes, viewed by politicians as can't-miss opportunities to deliver one-sided messages to a national audience with minimal journalistic filtration. How did we get here? The history of political conventions on TV mirrors the history of the television itself. No surprise there. As TV ownership exploded from less than 1 percent of US households in 1948 to a majority in 1954, convention organizers in both major parties adapted the events to take advantage of the new medium.