six months of no heckling

I didn't realize it's been six months since the White House had a press briefing, but as this PJ Media article by AJ Rice points out, Trump has taken away reporters' ability to just heckle when they could be doing real journalism, and in the meantime, as the above-linked article says, "And do you know what? Clocks didn’t stop. Bees didn’t stop pollinating flowers. The time-space continuum has not been torn asunder. The republic still stands."

Some idiot will, of course, make this about restriction of press freedoms, but the press doesn't have any sort of legal or intrinsic right to a White House press briefing (just as Brett Kavanaugh didn't actually have to undergo Senate hearings on his way to becoming a Supreme Court Justice: that was a courtesy). The press is certainly free to keep on mouthing off since it seems to have shirked its job of actually reporting facts. But:

Always remember the heckler's purpose is not free speech; [his] purpose is the suppression of free speech.

Good to keep in mind. The article also notes how old this adversarial relationship is:

Quick quiz: Who said, “I deplore... the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them.”?

Answer: Not Donald J. Trump. It was Thomas Jefferson. Despising the media literally goes back to the author of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was no fan of garbage reporting.

Amen to that. And this is why I watch Tim Pool: because he's a real journalist.