Hadas Gold

Donald Trump took credit for the public's lack of trust in the media, and called out a New York Times reporter, saying he should have been fired. Speaking to New York Post columnist Fred Dicker on his WGDJ-AM radio show on Sept 15, Trump said of a recent Gallup poll showing public confidence in the media at an all-time low: “I think I had a lot to do with that poll … because I’ve exposed the media. If you look at The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and if you look at others: the level of dishonesty is enormous. It’s so dishonest. I can do something that’s wonderful and they make it sound terrible," Trump said. But just a moment later, Trump said he doesn't know if the distrust in the media helps him because "I respect The New York Times. I respect The Washington Post.” “Everybody is talking about the dishonesty — the total dishonesty — of some of the papers and the media generally. CNN is unbelievably dishonest. They call it the Clinton News Network," Trump said. “I am very proud to say that I think I had a lot to do with that poll number.” Trump also said Times reporter Jonathan Martin "would have been fired" by the late Abe Rosenthal, who was executive editor of the Times in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Donald Trump's presidential campaign is ending its blacklist of news outlets, the campaign has confirmed. The blacklist has been in effect at the Trump campaign for nearly a year, with media outlets left out of official events for perceived slights in how they reported on his campaign. The banned outlets at times included Politico, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed and the Des Moines Register. Sometimes journalists for the outlets would be able to attend campaign events as members of the general public, but in several cases they were still removed from the venue when security realized they were press. A Washington Post reporter was once patted down at a Mike Pence event to make sure he did not have a cell phone or laptop on him at an event.

NBC's Lester Holt, ABC's Martha Raddatz, CNN's Anderson Cooper, Fox News' Chris Wallace and CBS' Elaine Quijano will moderate presidential and vice presidential debates this fall, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced.

Holt, anchor of NBC's "Nightly News,” will moderate the first debate at Hofstra University in New York on Sept. 26, which will be a traditional debate divided into six segments of 15 minutes each on major topics to be determined by Holt. Quijano, an anchor on CBS' live streaming service CBSN, will moderate the vice presidential debate on Oct. 4 at Longwood University in Virginia, which will be a traditional debate as well — divided into nine timed segments of 10 minutes each. Raddatz, ABC's Chief Global Correspondent and co-anchor of "This Week,” along with CNN anchor Cooper, will moderate a town-meeting style debate on Oct. 9 at Washington University in St. Louis. There, the questions will be posed directly by citizen participants made up of uncommitted voters based on topics "of broad public interest as reflected in social media and other sources." Wallace, host of "Fox News Sunday,” will become the first Fox News host to moderate a general election debate since the network's founding. He will host the final presidential debate on Oct. 19 at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. The format of the final debate will be the same as the first.

Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen Tim Kaine (D-VA) confirmed that the Clinton campaign will establish a "protective pool," at least for his own campaign travel.

The Clinton campaign has been using Donald Trump's total lack of a normal press pool to delay ramping up their coverage to a full protective pool--the group of reporters that travel with the candidate on the same plane. The campaign has indicated to some reporters it would not establish the protective pool before Labor Day. "We are not on the plane together," Sen Kaine said about his traveling press corps. "But that is going to change in about a week. And I think that is fairly common during campaigns that you often fly in small planes and that you get to the end, you start flying in larger planes. I think that is something, yeah, as we get into the thick of the campaign in Labor Day, that is going to change. I don't even think Donald Trump allowed the American press to go with him yesterday when he went to Mexico. Which was highly unusual."

The print pool rotation for covering Donald Trump will include outlets that his campaign has blacklisted. BuzzFeed, the Huffington Post, Politico and The Washington Post are among the blacklisted outlets that will be part of the pool rotation, which begins the week of Aug 29. BuzzFeed is the first outlet to act as official print pooler, through which reporters send out shared reports about Trump’s activities to the rest of the outlets on the pool rotation. "We just wanted to thank you for your patience over the past few weeks,” reads an e-mail sent to the Trump pool list, which will be managed by reporters from The New York Times and Time magazine. “But we are pleased to announce that after some start-and-stop negotiations with the Trump campaign, we are debuting our full print pool this week, starting with BuzzFeed today in Washington.”

According to a source familiar with the negotiations, which have been ongoing for months, those representing the pool demanded that only the pool could determine its membership and not the campaign. What’s not clear though is whether the banned outlets will be allowed to attend Trump campaign events as media when they are not on pool rotation.

Hillary Clinton will address the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention on Aug 5 in Washington (DC). "It is notable that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has recognized the 2016 NABJ-NAHJ Convention as a vital gathering to discuss her platform and the issues impacting black and Latino communities," said NABJ President Sarah Glover. "Presidential nominees and US presidents from both parties have attended NABJ annual conventions, including President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush, and presidential nominees Barack Obama, Bob Dole and Al Gore. We're ecstatic to add the first woman nominee to our list." The groups also extended an invitation to Donald Trump to speak as well, but that his campaign has not yet responded.

The Commission on Presidential Debates responded to Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee's complaints about the debate schedule with a message on July 31: The schedule is set. "The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) started working more than 18 months ago to identify religious and federal holidays, baseball league playoff games, NFL games, and other events in order to select the best nights for the 2016 debates," the commission said. "It is impossible to avoid all sporting events, and there have been nights on which debates and games occurred in most election cycles. A debate has never been rescheduled as a result."

Donald Trump and RNC officials have complained that two of the three scheduled presidential and one vice-presidential debates overlap with NFL games. The presidential debates are slated for Sept 26 at New York’s Hofstra University, Oct 9 at Washington University in St. Louis and Oct 19 at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. The vice-presidential debate is set for Oct 4 at Longwood University in Virginia.

Republican Vice Presidential nominee Mike Pence (R-IN) said the Trump campaign is having conversations about lifting the blacklist it has applied to certain media outlets.

Speaking to radio host Hugh Hewitt, Gov Pence defended his own history of dealing with the news media, saying he authored legislation while in Congress to help protect journalists’ confidential sources. “We’re going to have those conversations internally and I fully expect in the next 100 days we’re going to continue to be available to the media, whether they’re fair or unfair," Gov Pence said. The Trump campaign has blacklisted certain outlets, including Politico, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post and others, from attending his events because of what he considers unfair coverage. CNN’s Chris Cuomo said he is blacklisted from the Trump campaign “because of how we conduct our interviews.”

Trump may be the Republican nominee, but the Republican National Committee refuses to get involved or even comment on Trump’s treatment of the news media, instead diverting all questions to the campaign.

The attack in Nice, France has upended the pre-convention media plans for both presidential candidates. Donald Trump announced that he was postponing his vice presidential announcement, originally scheduled for July 15. Additionally, Trump told Fox News' Bill O'Reilly he was likely also postponing a planned joint interview with his vice presidential nominee on the CBS newsmagazine "60 Minutes." "Well, in light of what's happened tonight, in light of this, you know, absolutely horrific attack, you know, I'm not sure that I'm feeling good about doing 60 Minutes and I'm not sure that 60 Minutes is going to want to do anything other than this attack," Trump said in his second phone-in interview on Fox on July 14.

It’s been more than two months since Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) pulled out of the presidential race. But he’s still bitter at Fox News. On a radio program, Sen Cruz responded to Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, who questioned why Sen Cruz was meeting with Donald Trump and had agreed to speak at the GOP convention when he had previously excoriated the presumptive Republican nominee.

"I didn’t watch what she said and If I got dismayed every time somebody on Fox News attacked me, you know what, life is too short to worry about, that is an institution that can express its own corporate opinions, and it has done so at great volume during the course of the primaries. And I’m not going to worry about their attacks. Our country is in an extremely challenging position right now, and there are a lot of people who played an active role in putting us in this position,” Sen Cruz said.