Follow on Twitter
Subscribe by RSS
MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Pictures
New York Occasions chief White House correspondent Peter Baker argued some ominous parallels between President Donald Trump’s press pool shake-up and the early days of President Vladimir Putin in Russia — though one journalist who fled Moscow after facing Kremlin pressure insists there’s a “hell of a difference.”
In a Wednesday night article, Baker, who served as a Moscow bureau chief within the Nineties, pointed to the case of Yelena Tregubova, a Russian journalist who lost her position within the Kremlin press pool after publishing a e book very important of Putin in 2003. Not lengthy after, a bomb exploded out of doors her rental, and she fled the u . s . a ..
“In the scheme of things, it was a small moment, all but forgotten just about 25 years later. Nevertheless it was additionally a telling one. Mr. Putin did not care for challenges. The rest of the click pool received the message and ultimately was what the Kremlin needed it to be: a group of compliant newshounds who knew to toe the line or else they would pay a cost,” Baker wrote.
The comparability comes as Trump’s administration takes over the click pool rotation at the White House and continues to put in force its barring of The Related Press following its refusal to undertake Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Baker acknowledged the U.S. is not Russia, but warned that “Trump’s Washington is bringing back memories of Mr. Putin’s Moscow within the early days.”
“The news media is being compelled. Lawmakers were tamed. Occupation officers deemed disloyal are being fired. Prosecutors named by a president who promised ‘retribution’ are concentrated on perceived adversaries and losing circumstances in opposition to allies or others who do his bidding. Billionaire tycoons who as soon as considered themselves masters of the universe are prostrating themselves earlier than him,” Baker wrote.
Baker small print how Putin “moved to methodically consolidate energy, organising what his advisers referred to as ‘managed democracy’.”
He goes on to quote Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats, who fled her united states under the threat of arrest.
“The oligarchs kissing the ring, the court cases against the media, the constraints on which media must be in the White Home pool, and which aren’t — all that sounds acquainted,” Albats told the Times.
However she also pointed to what she sees as a key difference between the 2 international locations: “You have a working and unbiased judiciary, and we did not. And this is a hell of a difference.”
Despite that assurance, Baker insisted there’s a rising “kick back” in Washington.
“Each day any person who used to feel free to talk publicly towards Mr. Trump says they are going to no longer let journalists quote them by means of name for fear of repercussions, both Democrats and Republicans,” he wrote.
The put up Trump’s Press Shake-Up Like ‘Early Days’ Of Putin, NY Instances Reporter Claims first regarded on Mediaite.
