UPDATE II:
On Thursday, the Republican-controlled Senate, by a unanimous voice vote, passed a resolution rebuking Trump, affirming that the media “is not the enemy of the people.”
About time for the U.S. Senate to show some cojones.
Read more here
UPDATE I:
As more than 350 newspapers published editorials denouncing Trump’s attacks on the press, Trump disgracefully, yet predictably, lashed out against the free press:
“THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA IS THE OPPOSITION PARTY. It is very bad for our Great Country….BUT WE ARE WINNING!”
Read more here.
Original Story:
The president of the United States has been relentlessly, unpatriotically, baselessly and cowardly assaulting the media and journalists, calling them “fake news,” “fake, fake disgusting news,” hysterically shouting, “Don’t believe the crap you hear from these people,” even calling them “the enemy of the American people”
Finally, the media has had enough. Last week, the Boston Globe asked American newspapers to remind Americans of the value of a free press and hundreds of newspapers responded.
The New York Times has excerpted many of them under the title, “A Free Press Needs You.”
Note: The Guardian is reporting:
Nearly 350 news organizations are set to publish editorials on Thursday pushing back against Donald Trump’s attacks on the media and defending freedom of the press.
Starting with an excerpt from the Times’ own editorial, here are some of them.
Recalling some of the conflicts and tensions between government and the press, The Times writes:
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.
• The Denver Post: .“We are simply standing up for what we believe in as journalists.”
• The Hillsboro Tribune, The News Times, Hillsboro and Forest Grove, Ore.: The news isn’t ‘fake’ just because you see things differently.”
• The Sun Sentinel, Deerfield Beach, Fla.: “Our country’s leader shouldn’t be making it easier for dictators to harass and silence journalists in places where freedom of the press remains a dream.”
• The Daily Free Press, Boston, Mass.: “Even when Trump’s term ends, the effect of his rhetoric is a stain that has bled through onto these hardworking people and will be difficult to scrub away.”
• The Kansas Citry Star, Kansas City, Mo.: “That 44 percent of Republicans polled recently said Trump should have the autocrat’s power to shut down news outlets shows how successful his efforts have already been.”
• Van Buren County Democrat, Clinton, Ark.: “And of all the reactions to ‘Enemy of the People’ the one most overpowering is disappointment. Words, after all, matter – a point we prove every week. And those words, from that pulpit, are unacceptable and utterly, utterly, wrong.”
• The Idyllwild Town Crier, Idyillwild, Calif.: “A person who blasts reliable news sources as fake when they prove him wrong on an issue, or when it reveals his self-contradictions or his ignorance, or whenever he simply doesn’t like it, is denying reality.”
• The Des Moines Register, Des Moines, Iowa: “The true enemies of the people — and democracy — are those who try to suffocate truth by vilifying and demonizing the messenger. The response to that cannot be silence.”
• The Berkshire Eagle, Pittsfield, Mass.: “Mr. Trump’s behavior has placed the American experiment in democracy in unprecedentedly perilous times, and a free press has become more central to our nation’s survival than ever.”
• The Times Tribune, Corbin, Ky.: “Our leaders — be they presidents of the nation or of the city council — do not get to choose to whom they are accountable. They are accountable to the citizenry. We intend to hold them to it. To do anything less is dereliction of our duty.”
• The Star News, Wilmington, N.C.: “Yes, members of the press occasionally get facts wrong. When they do, they are held accountable by their news organizations as well as others in the industry, and far more often than not, the error is acknowledged in the form of a timely correction. The same cannot be said about this president.”
• The Elizabeth Advocate, Elizabethtown, Pa.: “If these threats of violence escalate to a point where journalists are afraid to do their job of holding government accountable, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution will be as meaningless as Article 125 of the Soviet Constitution of 1936.”
• The Providence Journal, Providence, R.I.: “Without this window into the workings of government, our democratic republic would cease to work, leaving elected leaders without a needed check on their power.”
• The Commons, Brattleboro, Vt.: “The biggest injustice of Trump’s smear of the press presumes that a Trump supporter cannot and will not think critically and fairly about their news. The president’s supporters deserve to be held to a higher standard.”
My hometown newspaper, The Austin American-Statesman: “It’s the job of Statesman reporters to bring you articles that may make you uncomfortable.”
THE COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS, NEW YORK:
Press freedom is enshrined in the First Amendment and is the bedrock of American democracy. What is less understood is that adherence to these principles has a profound impact on press freedom and the rights of journalists all over the world. When American leaders stand up for a free press, they embolden courageous journalists who put their lives and liberty on the line to report the news. And when American leaders fall short, they embolden the autocrats who seek to repress those journalists.
EL DIARIO, LA OPINIÓN, LA RAZA, LA PRENSA, NEW YORK:
Los latinoamericanos conocen bien en carne propia lo que significa la erosión del periodismo, la intimidación a los reporteros, la autocensura, la ambición desmedida de la casa presidencial. Se dice que en Estados Unidos ‘esas no ocurren,’ aunque es fácil identificar que el problema es serio cuando el Presidente declara que los medios de comunicación son el ‘enemigo del pueblo.’
[Translation added:
Latin Americans have firsthand knowledge of what erosion of (freedom of) the press, intimidation of reporters, self-censorship, unbridled ambition in the presidential mansion mean.
It is said that “these things do not occur” in the United States, although it is easy to point out that this is a serious problem when the president declares that the media is “the enemy of the people.”]
Finally, THE BOSTON GLOBE, BOSTON, MASS.:
‘The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom,’ wrote John Adams. For more than two centuries, this foundational American principle has protected journalists at home and served as a model for free nations abroad. Today it is under serious threat. And it sends an alarming signal to despots from Ankara to Moscow, Beijing to Baghdad, that journalists can be treated as a domestic enemy.
