Emboldening tyrants
The Times’ publisher is right to be concerned that Trump’s verbal attacks on the press translate into literal ones in repressive regimes around the globe
Our view:
Supporters of President Donald Trump will doubtless believe his side of the story about what happened when he met earlier this month with New York Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger and Times Editorial Page Editor James Bennet. But whether it was a chance for them to discuss “fake news” by the “failing New York Times” or, as Mr. Sulzberger contends, a venue for the paper to raise concerns about the president’s attack on journalism more broadly, one point the Times publisher made on Sunday is beyond dispute. When the supposed leader of the free world routinely labels journalists as “enemies of the people,” it provides license for despots, dictators and purveyors of mob rule throughout the world to persecute the press as a means to silence critics and evade accountability.
In 2016, when Mr. Trump was campaigning for the presidency, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte proclaimed that “Just because you're a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you're a son of a bitch.” Last year, after President Trump and Mr. Duterte met in Manila, reporters asked whether Mr. Trump had raised concerns about human rights abuses in the nation. Mr. Duterte shut down the questioning and called reporters “spies.” Mr. Trump laughed. The Philippines is the 5th most dangerous country in the world for journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Nearly 80 have been killed there since 1992, including at least four since Mr. Duterte took power.
When they met one-on-one for the first time in 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin leaned in toward President Trump, gestured to the reporters in the room and said, “These are the ones who are hurting you?” Mr. Trump replied, “These are the ones. You’re right about that.” On July 15 of this year, just before his summit with Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump tweeted that “Much of the news media is indeed the enemy of the people.” Just before the joint news conference Messrs. Putin and Trumpheld in Helsinki, a journalist credentialed by The Nation magazine was forcibly removed from the room.
According to Politifact, 38 journalists have been killed in work-related homicides in Russia since Mr. Putin gained power in 2000. And that likely underestimates the Putin regime’s brutality against journalists. Areporter whowrote critically about Mr. Putin was murdered in Ukraine less than two months before his summit with Mr. Trump.
The Stockholm Center for Freedom currently lists 61 Turkish journalists convicted, 179 arrested and 144 wanted by authorities. Last year, the man widely viewed as the architect of this oppression, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pushed through a constitutional referendum to vastly increase his own power and diminish the already weak independence of the judiciary — a move that will make it even easier for him to jail his critics in the press. And what did President Trump do? Before the ink was even dry on the fraudulent ballots, Mr. Trump called to congratulate him.