Skip Towne

CNN, MS NOW and Politico are melting down because they’ve had to report from outside the White House for one day. I couldn’t get access to cover President Biden or even the 2024 DNC. Neither could many of my peers in independent media. We pay our own way. We don’t have billion-dollar corporations backing us. Where was the outrage then? And when President Trump, RFK Jr. and other conservatives were deplatformed, much of the mainstream media laughed and celebrated. They weren’t screaming about an attack on free speech when we were silenced. President Trump has opened the White House to independent journalists, podcasters and new-media voices who were shut out before. He’s the most transparent President we’ve had. I’m a free-speech absolutist. I believe in a free press. But that doesn’t give anyone the right to run into the Oval Office, scream and yell at the President, and then expect to face no consequences for printing lies or slanderous claims.