Photo credit: APReaction in the media world has been swift and severe to the issue of subpoenas to five NYT journalists who reported on security questions involving the new Qatari-gifted Air Force One — a legal manoeuvre seen as a troubling escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign to control and intimidate independent media outlets.“The subpoenas are an extraordinary escalation in President Trump’s efforts to threaten and intimidate independent news organisations and have a chilling effect on the work of journalists across the country,” said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists.Media advocates and analysts expressed dismay at the tactic, even after months in which news organisations drawing President Trump’s ire have been attacked both in courtrooms and in the court of public opinion; media access to corridors of power has been blocked; and a Washington journalist’s home has been searched by federal agents. “They have used the levers of power to intimidate and demonise professional journalists who report stories that are unfavourable to the administration’s desired narrative,” said Frank Sesno, a former CNN White House bureau chief who is now a media and public affairs professor. He called Friday’s subpoenas “dangerous and uncharted territory, but merely an extension of what we have seen from this administration.”Some of the subpoenas were delivered to reporters at their homes, NYT said. Sought by Jay Clayton, the US attorney in Manhattan, they seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan this week.