President Donald Trump, who has been widely criticized for only speaking with right-wing news outlets, called the Washington Post and the New York Times first on Friday to talk about the House Republicans health care bill.
House Republicans pulled the Obamacare repeal bill on Friday after Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) told Trump they did not have enough votes to pass the bill.
CNN Reporter Dylan Byers tweeted that Trump, "who says you can't trust media," called the Washington Post and the New York Times first to discuss pulling the American Health Care Act.
First calls from Trump — who says you can’t trust media, media is enemy — go to Washington Post’s @costareports & New York Times’ @maggieNYT
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) March 24, 2017
Many mainstream media outlets, however, have lambasted Trump for not giving them the same treatment he gives conservative media.
In mid-March, Politico criticized the Trump administration for "Secretary Rex Tillerson's decision to take only a reporter from a conservative website on his first trip to Asia."
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell weighed in, saying, "The State Department is the beacon of press freedom around the world. The message now to China in particular when he gets to Beijing is that press freedom doesn’t matter." She was referencing Tillerson's decision to only give IJR a press seat.
Fortune magazine reported a week after the 2016 election that Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist and former chairman of Breitbart news, "has an unprecedented amount of influence over the President-elect of the United States—and that has some people very worried."
Several media outlets expressed frustration that Sean Spicer, on his first day as White House press secretary, gave his first three questions to conservative-leaning journalists.