Newspapers unite to take on Trump
PRESIDENT LASHES OUT AFTER COORDINATED CAMPAIGN TO DEFEND US PRESS FREEDOM
President Donald Trump yesterday lashed out at the press as newspapers across the United States launched a coordinated rebuttal to his attacks against what he calls “fake news.”
Trump tweeted: “There is nothing that I would want more for our Country than true FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. The fact is that the Press is FREE to write and say anything it wants, but much of what it says is FAKE NEWS, pushing a political agenda or just plain trying to hurt people. HONESTY WINS!” Trump also criticised The
Boston Globe, which spearheaded the newspaper editorial campaign. He tweeted that the Globe “is in COLLUSION with other papers on free press. PROVE IT!”
Newspapers from Maine to Hawaii pushed back against Trump’s attacks on “fake news” yesterday with a coordinated series of editorials speaking up for a free and vigorous press. The Boston Globe had estimated that some 350 newspapers would participate.
They did across the breadth of the country. The Portland (Maine) Press-Herald said a free and independent press is the best defence against tyranny, while the Honolulu StarAdvertiser emphasised democracy’s need for a free press.
“The true enemies of the people — and democracy — are those who try to suffocate truth by vilifying and demonising the messenger,” wrote the Des Moines Register in Iowa.
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.
...The fact is that the Press is FREE to write and say anything it wants, but much of what it says is FAKE NEWS, pushing a political agenda or just plain trying to hurt people. HONESTY WINS!” Donald Trump| in a tweet
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’.”
The Boston Globe | in its editorial
We journalists sit through boring government meetings and learn about state school financing formulas, so you don’t have to. It’s not as lofty a statement as the First Amendment, but it serves.”
US newspapers big and small hit back yesterday at the US President Donald Trump’s relentless attacks on the news media, launching a coordinated campaign of editorials stressing the importance of a free press.
Leading the charge was The Boston Globe, which had issued an appeal for this drive — accompanied by the hashtag #EnemyofNone — that has been joined by more than 200 newspapers around the 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 US administration are the ‘enemy of the people,’” the Globe editorial said.
“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,” it added in a piece entitled “Journalists are not the Enemy.”
Trump’s treatment of the press is also encouraging strongmen such as Vladimir Putin of Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey to treat journalists like enemies, the Globe argued. The coordinated effort comes amid Trump’s persistent claims that mainstream media outlets that publish articles critical of him are churning out “fake news”.
Frequent targets
Free press advocates argue that Trump’s efforts threaten the role of the news media as a check against abuse of power in government and imperil the constitutional First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press.
The New York Times, one of the most frequent targets of Trump’s criticism, ran a short, sevenparagraph editorial under a giant headline with all capital letters that read “A FREE PRESS NEEDS YOU” and with the statement that it is only right for people to criticise the press, say, for getting something wrong.
“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 Times wrote.
“At a practical level, we journalists sit through boring government meetings and learn about state school financing formulas, so you don’t have to,” said The Arizona Daily Star.
“It’s not as lofty a statement as the First Amendment, but it serves.”
Free press advocates say Trump is a real threat to the role of the press.
“I don’t think the press can just sit back and take it, they need to make their case when the most powerful man in the world tries to undercut the First Amendment,” said Ken Paulson, a former editor-in-chief of USA Today who heads the Newseum’s First Amendment Centre and is dean of communications at Middle Tennessee State University.
Some say Trump’s comments have incited threats against journalists covering his events, and may have created a climate of hostility that opened the door to violent attacks like a deadly one in June against the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland.
The Arizona Daily Star