Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Nation’s newspapers blast Trump’s frequent attacks on media
Hundreds of newspapers nationwide pushed back Thursday against President Donald Trump’s frequent attacks on the media and his assertion that the news media are “the enemy of the people.”
In a coordinated campaign, the newspapers released editorials calling on Trump to curb his rhetoric about the news media. While presidents have long complained about the media, none went as far as Trump in his public derision. Trump often repeats the same words to describe the media — “dishonest,” “disgusting,” “fake,” “opposition party.”
“We all — as citizens — have a stake in this fight, and the battle lines seem pretty clear,” wrote The Miami Herald’s editorial board. “If one first comes successfully for the press as an ‘enemy of the American People,’ what stops someone coming next for your friends? Your family? Or you?”
Not all editorial boards heeded the call. Among the abstainers were The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times.
“The editorial board decided not to write about the subject on this particular Thursday because we cherish our independence,” the Times editorial page editor Nicholas Goldberg wrote. “We would not want to leave the impression that we take our lead from others, or that we engage in groupthink.”
Among those that did join the campaign, The Denver Post argued that “Trump is a difficult politician to cover. His tweets and factually inaccurate statements frequently put him at loggerheads with the media.”
“In a vacuum void of his outlandish statements, some of Trump’s policies would earn more straightforward media coverage,” wrote the Post. “It has become a destructive cycle where the media covers Trump’s words and instead of self-reflection following scathing media reports, Trump cries fake news.”
The release of roughly 300 editorials was spearheaded by The Boston Globe, which last week urged editorial boards to produce opinion pieces about Trump’s attacks on the media.
Trump responded, tweeting: “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!”