Trump's aggressive tweeting has the twits in the MSM in a bit of a snit.

"Undignified," say the MSM newsies, and "another attack on the media," and "no way to challenge factual inaccuracies."  How, they fret, can Trump convey nuance or context in a 140-character tweet or other abbreviated social media statement?  We will be reduced to government by soundbite.  Indeed, a CNN anchor suggests that the news industry cabal not cover Trump's tweets.

The anxiety attack is compounded by a recent trial balloon that the Trump team might move press briefings out of the small White House briefing room, which can hold only about 50 reporters, into a large space in the next-door Executive Office Building.  The move would increase the number and variety of participants, letting in bloggers, talk radio hosts, and other deplorables (such as American Thinker's own Clarice Feldman).

The tweeting and the relocation of the briefings are two facets of the same issue: the role of the elite MSM as gatekeepers of the president's communications with the public.

The objection is not to government by sound bite.  That, we already have.  The objection is to soundbites not chosen by the MSM, because that would hobble their power to accentuate the negative and obscure the positive.  Stories, especially on TV, about presidential speeches are masterpieces of sensationalism, superficiality, and evasion, and they rarely provide any nuance or context.  The MSM rarely provide hyperlinks; one must work to find the real story.

Tweets are themselves the relevant sound bite, and they can easily contain links to additional material for those who want to follow up.  Small wonder that reporters are opposed.

The location of the pressers is related more to status than substance.  Few get to ask a question at a news conference, so access via TV is a reasonable facsimile.  While there is some undeniable advantage to physical presence, the more important benefit seems to be a sense of being among the elite group allowed in, and thus superior to the hoi polloi watching on TV.

The White House Correspondents Association opposes moving the pressers, but it gives no reason, asserting only the obvious untruth, given that the room holds only 50, that all reporters who want to attend a briefing can.

The WHCA then jumps to objecting to any effort to eject the correspondents from their offices in the West Wing, where they have easy access to senior officials.  No such proposal has been made, but the WHCA may well be right to see it as a logical next step; why should a few antique media companies be given preferential access?  Who knows what might be next – perhaps a presidential boycott of the WHCA's annual glitterati dinner?

Smart leaders have often harnessed new technologies to bypass existing hierarchies and communicate directly with the people.  Martin Luther used the printing press to flood German with a vernacular edition of the Bible in 1534.  In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt was the first presidential candidate to accept the nomination in person, in a radio broadcast address, and between 1933 and 1944, he delivered 30 radio fireside chats, eluding any media gatekeeping.  Charles de Gaulle, in 1958, issued newly invented transistor radios to French soldiers so that he could tell them directly to ignore the orders of their rebel generals, and in 1961, John F. Kennedy began televised press conferences.

So Trump is following some good examples, and when the MSM sniff that "that is just not done," he can quote FDR to them: "Let it also be symbolic that in [accepting the nomination in person] I broke traditions. Let it be from now on the task of our Party to break foolish traditions. We will break foolish traditions and leave it to the Republican [Democratic] leadership, far more skilled in that art, to break promises."