Trump replies to papers' coordinated editorials

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of newspaper editorial boards across the country answered a nationwide call Thursday to express disdain for President Donald Trump’s attacks on the news media, while some explained their decision not to do so. The same morning, the president tweeted that the “fake news media” is the “opposition party.”

The editorials came after the Boston Globe’s editorial board called on others to use their collective voice to respond to Trump’s war of words with news organi- zations in the United States.

Trump has labeled the news media “the enemy of the American people” and called much of the coverage “fake news.”

“Today in the United States we have a president who has created a mantra that mem- bers of the media who do not blatantly support the policies of the current US administration are the ‘enemy of the people,’” read the Globe’s editorial, which published online Wednesday. “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.”

The Globe’s editorial board made the appeal last week, urging newspaper editorial boards to produce opinion piecesabout Trump’s attacks on the media. These boards, staffed by opinion writers, operate independently from news reporters and editors.

As The Washington Post’s policy explains, the separation is intended to serve the reader, “who is entitled to the facts in the news columns and to opinions on the editorial and ‘op-ed’ pages.”

The Globe reported Thursday that more than 300 of them obliged.

Also Thursday, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution that “affirms the press is not the enemy of the people” and “condemns the attacks on the institution of the free press.”

Trump responded to the editorials, tweeting Thursday that the Globe is “in col- lusion with other papers on free press” and that much of the media is “pushing a political agenda.”

Trump also 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 peo- ple. HONESTY WINS!”

A month after taking the oath of office, Trump labeled the media “the enemy of the American people.” In the year that followed, a CNN analysis concluded, he used the word “fake” — as in “fake news,” “fake stories,” “fake media” or “fake polls” — more than 400 times. He once fumed, The New York Times reported, because a TV on Air Force One was tuned to CNN.

Then last week, at a political rally in Pennsylvania, Trump told his audience that the media was “fake, fake disgusting news.”

“Whatever happened to honest reporting?” Trump asked the crowd. Then he pointed to a group of journalists covering the event. “They don’t report it. They only make up stories.”

In response, the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s editorial board wrote:

“Let’s start with a fundamental truth: It is and always has been in the interests of the powerful to dismiss and discredit those who could prove a check on their power. President Donald Trump is not the first politician to openly attack the media for fulfilling its watchdog role. He is, perhaps, the most blatant and relentless about it.”

But at least one newspaper said that the president is not its primary concern. The editorial board for the Capital Gazette in Annapolis wrote that the newspaper is more concerned with how its community sees it.

“It’s not that we disagree with concerns about the president’s language in speeches and on social media,” the editorial board said. “We noted with regret the hurtful nature of his remarks last month calling most journalists dishonest even as we attended funerals for five friends and colleagues killed in the June 28 attack on our newsroom.

“We’re just not coordinating with other news organizations because the president’s opinion, frankly, is just not that important to us. We are far more concerned about what this community thinks of us.”