More than 350 US newspapers rebuke Trump

WASHINGTON: Hundreds of US news publications on Thursday ran editorials in a coordinated move to push back against continuing attacks from President Donald Trump, who has called news media the “enemy of the people” and the “opposition party”.

The Boston Globe for the coordinated action and organised the countrywide effort that was eventually embraced by more than 350 publications.

In an editorial with the headline “Journalists are not the enemy”, the Globe wrote: “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 US 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 oldtime charlatan threw out ‘magic’ dust or water on hopeful crowd.”

The New York Times wrote: “Criticising 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.”

Trump pushed back in a string of tweets on Thursday. “THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA IS THE OPPOSITION PARTY. It is very bad for our Great Country .... BUT WE ARE WINNING!” he wrote.

“There is nothing that I would want more for our Country than