As Trump Targets the Press, His White House Is Screening a Journalism Tribute

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[URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/us/politics/trump-the-post-white-house-screening.html?rref=collection%2Fnewseventcollection%2FThe%20Trump%20White%20House&action=click&contentCollection=Politics&module=Collection&region=Marginalia&src=me&version=newsevent&pgtype=article"]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/us/politics/trump-the-post-white-house-screening.html?rref=collection%2Fnewseventcollection%2FThe%20Trump%20White%20House&action=click&contentCollection=Politics&module=Collection&region=Marginalia&src=me&version=newsevent&pgtype=article
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[QUOTE]WASHINGTON — Even as President Trump [URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/us/politics/trump-threatens-sue-fire-fury-publisher.html"]threatened to block the publication[/URL] of a book detailing his slapdash approach to the presidency, his White House is scheduled to receive a cinematic, if belated, lesson on the failed precedent of prior restraint on the American press.

This particular lesson stars Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep.

Setting what is likely to be a landspeed record for stranger-than-fiction irony, the White House has requested and received permission to screen [URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/24/business/media/spielberg-post-media-trump.html"]“The Post.”[/URL] The movie recounts the Nixon administration’s attempts to stop newspapers from publishing portions of a classified government study about the Vietnam War.

Presidential administrations often seek to screen films, but this otherwise ho-hum request carried special significance this week.

It came as Mr. Trump attacked Michael Wolff, the author of “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” as well as the writer’s sources, including Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist. Mr. Trump also threatened legal action against Mr. Wolff’s publisher, Henry Holt & Company. (So far, that threat has backfired into good business for both author and publisher.)

Additionally, the president found time this week to announce plans for [URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/us/politics/trump-tweets-nuclear-button.html"]“THE MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR[/URL],” which appears to be a sort of [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/movies/08arts-BULLOCKWINSW_BRF.html"]Razzie prize[/URL] for what Mr. Trump called “Dishonesty & Bad Reporting.”[/QUOTE]