300+
Newspapers Unite to Defend the Free Press from Trump's Unprecedented Attack
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Progressive Charlestown has been attacked and I have been personally vilified by Charlestown officials, especially the Charlestown Citizens Alliance, for coverage and opinions they don’t like. Before Trump made “Fake News” his mantra, that was the general tenor of the CCA’s attacks.
That’s OK, though, because it’s part of the age old conflict between politicians and the media.
What’s new is the new dimensions
that have been added to that conflict by Donald Trump. His repeated use of the “Fake
News” line was bad enough, but his claim that the media are “The Enemy of the
People” is nothing less than a call to action to his mobs of unhinged
supporters. In ancient Rome, calling someone an “enemy of the people” was an
instruction to the people to kill or do harm to those so named.
Five journalists in
Annapolis, Maryland were gunned down by a loony and you can bet there will be
more to come. Perhaps many more. The blame will lie on Donald Trump, but it
will also be shared by those others who have decided to try to divert attention
from uncomfortable truths by attacking the messenger. – Will Collette
With President Donald
Trump ramping up his attacks on the free press in recent weeks, more than
300 local and national newspapers across the country on Thursday took the
suggestion of a Boston Globe editor, penning editorials to
rebuke Trump's frequent claim that journalists are "the enemy of the
people."
"The dirty war on
the free press must end," wrote deputy editorial page editor
Marjorie Pritchard in her call to newsrooms. "The impact of Trump's
assault on journalism looks different in Boise than it does in Boston. Our
words will differ. But at least we can agree that such attacks are
alarming."
Large-circulation publications including the New York Times, the Miami Herald, and the Globe all took part, and hundreds of smaller city and regional newspapers nationwide also agreed to defend the free press with their own editorials.
Just a small sampling
of the editorials ran by newspapers follows:
Replacing a free media
with a state-run media has always been a first order of business for any
corrupt regime taking over a country. Today in the United States we have a
president who has created a mantra that members of the media who do not
blatantly support the policies of the current U.S. administration are the
"enemy of the people." This is one of the many lies that have been
thrown out by this president, much like an old-time charlatan threw out
"magic" dust or water on a hopeful crowd.
Portland Press
Herald (Portland, Maine)—"The best defense against tyranny is a free and
independent press":
Normally we let our
work speak for itself, but these are not normal times...Today we stand together
with our competitors to warn you that a pluralistic democracy can't survive
without a free and independent press, and any powerful person who claims to
have "an exclusive" on the truth should not be trusted.
New York Times—"A free press needs you":
In 2018, some of the
most damaging attacks are coming from government officials. Criticizing the
news media—for underplaying or overplaying stories, for getting something
wrong—is entirely right. News reporters and editors are human, and make
mistakes. Correcting them is core to our job. But insisting that truths you
don't like are "fake news" is dangerous to the lifeblood of
democracy. And calling journalists the "enemy of the people" is
dangerous, period.
These attacks on the
press are particularly threatening to journalists in nations with a less secure
rule of law and to smaller publications in the United States, already buffeted
by the industry's economic crisis.
Chagrin Valley
Times (Chagrin Falls, Ohio)—"Local news is real":
New businesses in
town, car accidents, election results, high school sports all are examples of
real news. When someone calls the news "fake" simply because they
don’t like what they read, they are trampling on your first amendment rights.
We are indeed your
lens into your community. We are not your enemy. Unlike some posts on Facebook
and other social media sites, we verify our facts before publication. We are
not anonymous. We stand by the veracity of our work.
Today we join
newspapers across the country in affirming our mission to be a guardian of
democracy and to arm citizens with accurate information so they can make smart
judgments. The free press is the very fabric of a democracy. It's what makes us
the United States of America.
The Monitor, (McAllen, Texas)—"Who we are—Journalists document history as we live
it with our readers":
Forgive those of us
who might be sensitive at being called enemies of the people. We have seen what
happens when that sentiment is taken to the extreme, as when five people were
gunned down at a Maryland newspaper in June.
Those of us working on
the border might be a bit more sensitive, as we see dozens of our peers across
the river threatened and killed each year for reporting on government corruption
and the drug war...
Their stories—and
yours—are too important to be swayed by someone who complains of the attention,
even as he depends upon it. Your right to be informed will always be paramount,
and our dedication to providing that information will always be our primary
duty.
At the Poynter
Institute, editor and longtime journalist Al Tompkins wrote a column supportive
of the response to Trump's rhetoric from newsrooms across the country—and urged journalists to also focus on
improving the field's ability to accurately report on the diverse viewpoints
and experiences of the American public.
Lots of journalists
were surprised after the 2016 election. We vowed to listen to the public more,
to find out why we were so surprised to hear that the public didn't love
journalists and a growing number didn't believe us.
Whatever you write in
your editorials, are you willing to listen, too?
By 9:00am Eastern
time, the coordinated message already appeared to have angered Trump, as he
tweeted one of his most direct attacks on journalists yet, calling the
media "the opposition party"—a belief that
he has frequently alluded to but had not previously stated explicitly.
