Trump eliminates his "black list" of media banned from his campaign rallies

The campaign of US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that it will provide press credentials for a number of media outlets that to date had been banned from his campaign rallies, allegedly because their coverage was unfair to him.

From this point forward, accreditation will be authorised for the previously banned media outlets, a spokesman for the Trump campaign told EFE.

The so-called "black list" included The Washington Post, The Huffington Post and Politico; television network and news Website Univision and the publications BuzzFeed and The Daily Beast, which for months were not allowed to cover Trump's campaign events from the area specially reserved for the press, among other restrictions.

 

"I figure they can't treat me any worse," the magnate told CNN in a statement in which he said the ban was being rescinded.

The first media outlet to be punished by the mogul's campaign was The Huffington Post, which had relegated its coverage of Trump to its "entertainment" section, followed by the Iowa daily Des Moines Register, which had urged the businessman to withdraw from the Republican presidential race before that state's caucuses in February.

Trump's practice of banning certain media drew much criticism when he zeroed in on The Washington Post, one of the country's most prestigious dailies, and several weeks ago he threatened to do the same to The New York Times, although he has never carried out that threat, EFE news reported.

"Revoking press credentials was imprudent, pointless and offensive from the start. We're pleased to see the ban come to a long-overdue end," The Washington Post's Executive Editor, Marty Baron, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Trump has made the press one of his favourite and regular targets during his campaign, and he often fires up the crowd at his rallies by urging them to boo the "dishonest" reporters present there.

The GOP candidate, who has criticised his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for not holding a single press conference so far in 2016, so far has not authorised a group of reporters to accompany him everywhere he goes and travel with him on his jet, something that the former Secretary of State's campaign began allowing last Monday.

--IANS

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