New York : Donald Trump has had tense ties with reporters since launching his presidential campaign one year ago Thursday, but he took it a dramatic step further this week by banning The Washington Post from his events.
The presumptive Republican nominee's campaign has banned at least a dozen news organizations, a disturbing trend that media groups say highlights his disdain for free speech enshrined in the US Constitution's First Amendment.
Trump assails newspapers that anger him as "failing" enterprises that are "pure scum."
At rallies during primary season, he lashed out at journalists as "dishonest" and "sleaze." Some were threatened by Trump supporters, others manhandled by security personnel or Trump staff.
When a reporter crosses an invisible line, he yanks their credentials.
"If people don't cover me fairly, or if they actually make things up, I don't know why anybody should be allowed" into his events, Trump told The New York Times, which wrote that the White House hopeful "casts himself as punisher in chief."
Trump's ban on the Post apparently stemmed from his disapproval of its story -- reported after the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida by a radicalized gunman -- stating that Trump seemed to suggest that President Barack Obama sympathized with terrorists.
The action against the award-winning newspaper could be considered just the latest in a string of vengeful responses by a thin-skinned candidate, but it was met with incredulity and alarm by some.
