President Trump only chose media outlets owned by conservative mogul Rupert Murdoch to ask questions during Friday’s joint press conference with Japanese President Shinzo Abe.

The White House typically says in advance which outlets will be allowed to ask questions of the world leaders during such events, most often on a rotating basis.


Trump called on reporters from the New York Post and Fox Business Network, two outlets that are owned by Murdoch's News Corp. No other American reporters were called on during the press conference.
The Post’s Daniel Halper, who published a book critical of Trump's presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, in 2014, asked Trump about his reaction to a federal court's ruling on Thursday that kept his travel ban inactive. Halper also asked Abe about his response to Trump’s decision to drop out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multi-country trade deal that included Japan.

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This week, the Financial Times reported that Murdoch sat in on Trump’s interview with The Times of London, which is also owned by News Corp. Murdoch has reportedly sought a closer relationship with Trump after initial skirmishes between Trump and Murdoch's Fox News during the Republican primary.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/318971-rupert-murdoch-owned-outlets-get-only-us-questions-at-trump-japan

Conflict Over Trump Forces Out an Opinion Editor at The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial features editor has left the paper following tensions over the section drifting in a pro-Donald Trump direction.

News of the departure of Mark Lasswell, who edited op-eds for the Journal, comes as the paper’s internal tensions over Trump have begun to spill into public view. The reliably hawkish, pro-trade, small government conservative Journal op-ed page has been challenged by the rise of the populist, nationalist Trump movement. The Journal’s opinion pages have been a showcase for the intra-right divide over Trump, featuring Trump-sympathetic writers like Bill McGurn alongside anti-Trump columnists such as Bret Stephens. Lasswell appears to be a casualty of that divide, and his dismissal a victory for the pro-Trump faction on the editorial staff.

According to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation, Lasswell was in effect phased out over a period of months from the paper. He took a book leave during the election following conflict with his boss Paul Gigot, the editorial page director, about the extent to which the page should run material sympathetic to Trump.

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According to a source close to Lasswell, the relationship between Lasswell and Gigot broke down in June when Gigot blocked Lasswell from publishing op-eds critical of Trump’s business practices and which raised questions about his alleged ties to Mafia figures. Lasswell asked Gigot for a book leave for the remainder of the election. Gigot, who had been critical of Trump, took a “sudden turn” on the candidate, the source said. In a note to staff on July 5, Gigot announced Lasswell’s leave. The note reads in part:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/conflict-over-trump-forces-out-an-opinion-editor-at-the-wall-street-journal/516318/