Letter to the Editor from Christopher Nelson.

Recently the Dakota Student ran an opinion piece by Elizabeth Fequiere entitled “President Trump’s Media Ban.” I write today to respond to this ill reasoned and poorly written defense of the current Republican administration.

First she makes the unverifiable statement that several news outlets claimed that the Trump administration’s denial of access to Press Secretary Sean Spicer was “the first time in American history that a president has impeded on the people’s right to free speech.” Pure malarkey. None of the media outlets Ms. Fequiere mentioned made this absurd claim.

Furthermore, any astute student of American history can point to a multitude of presidential actions that have impeded upon the press over the course of our history.

Next she speaks of the Obama administration in 2008 to defend the actions of the Trump administration in 2017. This is a bizarre analogy on its face for one simple and unavoidable fact. There was NO Obama administration in 2008. As she states herself, it was the Obama campaign that did not allow conservative reporters on his campaign plane. Something the Trump administration repeated in 2016 by not allowing reporters from more liberal leaning organizations on his campaign plane. Comparing the actions of someone campaigning for the office of the presidency to the actions of an actual presidential administration to make a poorly reasoned argument does the readers of the Dakota Student a disservice.

Finally this is not an issue of Freedom of Speech as Ms. Fequiere has stated. The government has not prevented these media outlets from reporting on any issue. Truthfully, we would not be aware of this issue if it were not for media outlets reporting on this media ban of the current White House.

I would hope that in the future Ms. Fequiere writing will be better reasoned and that an editor might look at it to determine if her assertions hold any water.