I accept all you say except the last sentence: A bad move and to be frank, firk the press.
This is a media-savvy world with phones recording every incident and video clips circling the world in seconds. Like it or not, bad news makes the headlines, happy stories all too often just don't. Many have found that blacklisting the Press results in the Press ignoring you -- until it finds something you don't want published ...
Time will tell, don't you wonder why Ukraine no longer commands the headlines.