Newspapers unite to push back at Trump
of 25 million ar may have f bridge’s cables
eep. will focus aterials 189-metre section collapsed portion of the raised motorway in Genoa to collapse, sending around 35 cars and several trucks plummeting to the ground, Italy’s populist Government blamed the private company that managed it.
Luigi Di Maio, Deputy Prime Minister and the leader of the Five Star Movement, accused Autostrade per l’Italia of chasing profits at the expense of public safety. “Instead of investing money for maintenance, they divide the profits and that is why the bridge falls,” he said.
Autostrade, which around 3000km of operates Italian 90m high 45m Corrosion of tendons may be contributory factor Displaced residents evacuated from buildings under the bridge. motorways, is controlled by the Benetton group through its holding company, Atlantia.
Di Maio accused previous Italian governments of turning a blind eye to the upkeep of the country’s motorways because of political contributions.
“For the first time there is a Government that does not take money from Benetton. Autostrade was protected by previous governments,” he said. “If the bridge was dangerous, then they should have closed it.”
The Government said it wanted to revoke the contract awarded to
Italian Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio, centre right, at the site. Autostrade and hit the company with a fine of €150 million ($259.3m).
Autostrade insisted that the bridge had been “constantly monitored” and refuted accusations that it had not invested enough in maintenance.
However, several locals told the Daily Telegraph that the structure shook noticeably when trucks rolled across it and many residents worried about crossing over and under it.
The bridge had to withstand more than 25 million vehicle crossings a year, with traffic volumes quadrupling in the last 30 years. Newsrooms across the United States are pushing back against President Donald Trump with a co-ordinated series of newspaper editorials condemning his attacks on “fake news” and suggestion that journalists are the enemy.
The Boston Globe invited newspapers across the country to stand up for the press with editorials yesterday, and several began appearing online a day earlier.
Nearly 350 news organisations have pledged to participate, according to Marjorie Pritchard, op-ed editor at the Globe.
In St Louis, the Post-Dispatch called journalists “the truest of patriots”.
The Chicago Sun-Times said it believed most Americans know that Trump is talking nonsense. “We are, at the Sun-Times, the enemy of unchecked authority and undeserved privilege. We are the enemy of selfentitlement. We are the enemy of the notion that the only way up is to hold somebody else down,” it wrote.
The Fayetteville Observer said it hoped Trump would stop, “but we’re not holding our breath”. “Rather, we hope all the President’s supporters will recognise what he’s doing — manipulating reality to get what he wants,” the North Carolina newspaper said.
Some newspapers used history lessons to state their case. The
Elizabethtown Advocate in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, for instance, compared free press in the US to such rights promised but not delivered in the former Soviet Union.
The New York Times added a pitch. “If you haven’t already, please subscribe to your local papers,” said the
Times. “Praise them when you think they’ve done a good job and criticise them when you think they could do better. We’re all in this together.”
That last sentiment made some journalists skittish.
The Wall Street Journal, which said it was not participating, noted in a column by James Freeman that the
Globe’s effort ran counter to the independence that editorial boards claim to seek. Freeman wrote that Trump has the right to free speech as much as his media adversaries.
“While we agree that labelling journalists the ‘enemy of the American people’ and journalism ‘fake news’ is not only damaging to our industry but destructive to our democracy, a co-ordinated response from independent — dare we say ‘mainstream’ — news organisations feeds a narrative that we’re somehow aligned against this Republican President,” the Baltimore Sun wrote.
Still, the Sun supported the effort and also noted the deaths of five Capital Gazette staff members at the hands of a gunman in nearby Annapolis, Maryland.
The Radio Television Digital News Association, which represents more than 1200 broadcasters and websites, is also asking its members to point out that journalists are friends and
We are, at the the enemy of unchecked authority and undeserved privilege. We are the enemy of selfentitlement. We are the enemy of the notion that the only way up is to hold somebody else down.
neighbours doing important work holding government accountable.
“I want to make sure that it is positive,” said Dan Shelley, the group’s executive director. “We’re shooting ourselves in the foot if we make this about attacking the President or attacking his supporters.”
It remains unclear how much sway the effort will have. Newspaper editorial boards overwhelmingly opposed Trump’s election in 2016. Polls show Republicans have grown more negative toward the news media in recent years: Pew Research Centre said 85 per cent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said in June last year that the news media has a negative effect on the country, up from 68 per cent in 2010.
Still, newsrooms are trying to convince them otherwise.