Words matter

Vilification isn’t serving U.S. interests

Maybe it’s not in vogue to proclaim the vital role of the press in the United States these days. In all likelihood, one would be hard pressed to get that 13-year-old comment by Mike Pence out of the vice president today. His boss wouldn’t care for it.

Naturally, we believe in a free press and its contributions to American governance and freedom. Is that self- serving because we are part of the media? Perhaps, but we “naturally” come to that conclusion not by our membership in the Fourth Estate, but by our pride in American freedoms and our confidence that the Founding Fathers knew what they were doing with the First Amendment as much as they did with the Second Amendment, Third Amendment and so on.

James Madison, the father of our U.S. Constitution and the nation’s fourth president, said “To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.”

Such lofty notions aren’t to set journalists up as heroes. Let’s save such honors for men and women who bled on battlefields protecting this nation and its freedoms. But if it chaps your hide to witness Colin Kaepernick kneel during the national anthem, reserve a little of your indignation for real attacks on our American way of life, including those by political leaders intent on destroying Americans’ confidence in the ideal of a free press.

Last Thursday’s violence against a newsroom staff in Maryland provoked debate about the state of the media and attitudes about its role. Because he’s a vocal, combative critic of the media, some commentators tried to lay blame for a newsroom attack at the feet of the president. We don’t.

Trump isn’t to blame for Thursday’s attack. The man who walked into the newsroom with a gun is. He had his issues directly with the newspaper, primarily that the newspaper did its job in reporting his criminal conviction in a 2011 case of harassment. The biggest problem some people have with the press is that they do their jobs.

The president’s near constant assault on the press is his responsibility. What we will probably never know is to what extent an atmosphere of virulent hatred for the press propels some people to feel OK to commit or celebrate physical acts of violence against reporters, editors and others working to inform the public. And before anyone launches into a rant about whatever reporter or commentator he hates, we must emphatically state, without hesitation, that most journalists are dedicated to accuracy and obtaining the best obtainable truth to report.

President Trump assails the media generally, although he occasionally credits an outlet or two for not being “fake news.” He’s called reporters “sick people.” He’s basked in chants at rallies as he’s pointed to reporters and demonized their roles. Indicative of the mood at some of his rallies was a supporter’s T-shirt saying “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some assembly required.” Trump has devoted his time and tweets not just to calling out errors or disagreeing with commentators — all fair game — but to cast the media as part of an unpatriotic conspiracy working against the American people.

On Feb. 17, Trump sent a tweet calling “the FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @ CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people.”

That, our fellow Americans, isn’t truth. It’s manipulation. If you believe it, consider yourself manipulated.

And it’s working for the president, sad to say. Not the nation.

Donald Trump comes from a business climate in which his bravado and his wielding of power has faced little resistance. In his business deals, he’s usually the wealthiest one in the room and he’s unafraid to throw his weight around. That style, admirable to a point, has continued in what one would most often consider the public service of the presidency. Wielding it in the presidency can at times seem firm and strong — a desirable capacity in a leader — but his penchant for going too far with it is troublesome. When he eagerly paints the media as the enemy of the American people — calling them corrupt, dishonest, even scum — he’s often not taking issue with a specific piece of information being reported, but appears to be trying to dismantle the very notion of a free press that’s central to the American story, to American success.

It is not a free press that needs to be feared. The well-respected television reporter/anchor-turned-commentator David Brinkley analyzed freedom of the press this way:

“As a conservative who believes in limited government, I believe that the only check on government power in real time is a free and independent press.” — Mike Pence, July 20, 2005, Senate Committee on the Judiciary

“Numerous politicians have seized absolute power and muzzled the press. Never in history has the press seized absolute power and muzzled the politicians.”

The man who attacked news staff at the local Capital Gazette in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, last week is to blame for the violence he inflicted. Blaming Trump for it is unfair. But such incidents ought to give every American pause to consider that rhetoric matters, that the nation’s leader does have a role in influencing the bounds of what’s acceptable and what isn’t, that one leader’s immediate need to control the political agenda should never be bigger than the principles that have strengthened this nation since its founding nearly 250 years ago.

Like every other part of American society, the press is deserving of some criticism. We’ve published plenty of it from Northwest Arkansas readers in our own pages. Such differences over what’s fair and what’s not, what’s factual and what’s not, can play out without casting anyone as villains who deserve to be on the receiving end of violence.

Joseph Pulitzer once said “A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will in time produce a people as base as itself.” That’s a warning for both the American press and the American people. Both need the other to fulfill their duties responsibly and hold the people in positions of power accountable. In 2018, both can find room for improvement.