Michael Calderone

Sinclair Broadcast Group CEO Chris Ripley apologized to employees for having to endure what he called “politically motivated attacks” over the company’s recent promos. In a memo sent to staff, Ripley defended the scripts that anchors at more than 60 Sinclair stations were compelled to read, telling staff that the practice “is not unique to Sinclair, however, the blowback we received for doing so certainly is.” 

President-elect Donald Trump loves to bash the media, but subscriptions to national publications have risen significantly since his election.

On Nov 9, either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump should be the next president of the United States. But whether reporters are able to follow her or him throughout the day, as is done for the sitting president, remains unclear. Neither campaign has yet agreed to a protective pool to track the president-elect’s movements, a departure from recent election cycles.

“It is not normal and it is unacceptable,” said Jeff Mason, a Reuters correspondent and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. The White House Correspondents’ Association oversees the rotating group of reporters who travel everywhere with the president and file dispatches to the larger press corps on what he’s doing, whom he’s meeting with and when he returns home. This arrangement, known as a protective pool, is considered necessary to ensure journalists are present in the event of any newsworthy comment or moment, including a threat on the president’s life. Both the Clinton and Trump campaigns have traveling press pools, but neither is fully protective. The Democratic and Republican standard-bearers in recent election cycles ― including Sen John McCain (R-AZ) and former Massachusetts Gov Mitt Romney ― had protective pools in place by the time they wrapped up the summer conventions. In letters sent to the Clinton and Trump campaigns, the WHCA’s leadership expressed “profound concern and consternation” at both for so far failing to establish a protective pool system and urged each “to remedy the situation without delay for the remainder of the 2016 campaign.”

Kellyanne Conway, the campaign manager for Donald Trump, claimed that some embedded network producers following the GOP presidential nominee are overwhelmingly “negative” in their coverage. “Start looking at the Twitter feeds of ‘objective’ reporters, particularly our embeds,” Conway said. “These are not profiles in courage and this is not journalism. There are people who cover our campaign who actually just slander our candidate on Twitter.” Conway said she found 92 percent of the tweets posted by at least two embeds to be negative. “Why are they on our campaign plane?” she asked. “Why are they covering our campaign?”

Throughout the nearly 14-minute interview, Conway suggested the Trump campaign was the victim of media bias and said her biggest worry regarding the debate with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was “not being treated fairly afterward” by the press. “I’m worried some of the headlines are already written,” she added.

News organizations have been preparing for the possibility of their employees covering political unrest during the Republican National Convention, with some offering training and equipment typically reserved for war correspondents. Yet even a body armor-clad reporter or photographer could miss the action if arrested.

The National Press Photographers Association recently conducted a series of trainings with Cleveland (OH) police to help minimize the chances that journalists will spend a few hours, or a night, in jail. Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel for the NPPA, described preventing the arrest of journalists as a “triple win.” “Officers and departments wouldn’t get sued for violating people’s constitutional rights,” he said. “Citizens and journalists would be able to exercise those rights. And ultimately the public would be informed as to what’s going on.” Osterreicher held those hour-and-a-half training sessions with police in June in Cleveland ― and more recently in Philadelphia (PA), site of next week’s Democratic National Convention. The NPPA received a grant from the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation of the Society of Professional Journalists for the trainings. “We greatly appreciate those departments’ willingness to help avoid unnecessary and improper interference, harassment and arrests of those doing nothing more than exercising a constitutional right,” the Society of Professional Journalists said.

On the night of Aug 13, 2014, about half a million people watched online as a militarized police force in in Ferguson, Missouri, squared off with largely peaceful crowds protesting the killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown.

Mustafa Hussein, a constitutional law student who volunteers at the small, urban music station based in nearby Maplewood, said that Argus Radio, which launched online in 2013 and is run by five volunteers, recently purchased video equipment so it could livestream concerts. But the station decided to use the equipment for the first time to cover the interaction between police and protesters.

As many as half a million people simultaneously watched the livestream, and about 1.2 million people in total watched it, Hussein said.

SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein wrote that the Senate Press Galley has denied its application for a press pass and will not renew a previously granted credential to Lyle Denniston, a veteran Supreme Court reporter who writes for the site.

In a post on his site, Goldstein wrote that SCOTUSblog plans to appeal the decision, and if denied, will “litigate the issue.”

Despite winning major journalism awards and becoming a go-to source for comprehensive coverage of Supreme Court decisions, SCOTUSblog has struggled to obtain press credentials. The Supreme Court has never credentialed SCOTUSblog, although Denniston currently has a credential for his work with Boston public radio station WBUR.

For now, SCOTUSblog can request public seats for cases, but cannot send another reporter in Denniston's place. Denniston has covered the Supreme Court for over 50 years, and if he were to retire, SCOTUSBlog would be without anyone with a pass.