The media is not the enemy

Time for a history lesson. The phrase ‘‘enemy of the people’’ became notorious during the French Revolution when Robespierre said the new government owed nothing to enemies of the people but death. Autocratic regimes on both the Left and the Right deployed it during the 20th century to identify internal opponents, whether they be Jewish communities or Soviet counter-revolutionaries.

When seen in these terms, US President Donald Trump’s use of the phrase to describe the media is both revealing and alarming. It is revealing because of what it says about the leader’s authoritarian longings. And it is alarming because of its suggestions of disloyalty and sabotage.

During the election campaign in 2016, Trump urged crowds of supporters to turn on journalists who were tasked with covering the candidate’s ascent. Reporting from a rally in Cincinnati a month before the election, the New York Times described a scene where ‘‘more than 15,000 supporters flashed homemade signs, flipped middle fingers and lashed out in tirades often laced with profanity as journalists made their way to a crammed, fencedin island in the centre of the floor’’.

Supporters were seen in T-shirts that read ‘‘Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required.’’ Attacks on media were so frequent and hostile that the Committee to Protect Journalists declared Trump ‘‘an unprecedented threat’’ to the rights of journalists and press freedom generally.

Two years later, readers are less shocked by Trump’s insults and scandals. We risk becoming blase as he repeats his lines about ‘‘fake, fake disgusting news’’ peddling made-up stories. But a leader who can persuade at least some of his following to believe nothing they read, see or hear, and refuses to take questions from a media outlet as authoritative as CNN, is one who hopes to bend reality to his will. Such a leader presents an enormous danger.

After meeting with Trump in July, New York Times publisher AG Sulzberger called the president’s language ‘‘not just divisive but increasingly dangerous’’. It called for a response. More than 300 US news outlets have published editorials on the same day warning of the Trump presidency’s attacks on the media. Each was crafted for local conditions, in titles ranging from the New York Times and the Boston Globe to papers in smaller centres.

As far as we know, Trump has not called Stuff and its newspapers ‘‘enemies of the people’’. But we also take this opportunity to reiterate the importance of an independent press. New Zealand has had its own autocratic attacks on the media, from media censorship during the 1951 waterfront strike to prime minister Robert Muldoon removing journalist and cartoonist Tom Scott from his weekly press conference in 1982.

A strong press is the last defence against a fake news infestation. Typically, Trump has debased the meaning of fake news by applying it to any coverage he dislikes. But as we saw from Judith Collins’ recent Twitter slip, it is easy for politicians to accidentally or deliberately share conspiracies and falsehoods suiting their political situations. The old line ‘‘a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes’’ is truer than ever in the social media age.

‘‘But a leader who can persuade at least some of his following to believe nothing they read ... and refuses

to take questions from a media outlet as authoritative as CNN ... hopes to bend reality to his will.’’