US newspapers big and small yesterday hit back at 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 350 newspapers across the nation.
“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.
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“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 an editorial entitled “Journalists are not the Enemy.”
Trump’s treatment of the press is also encouraging strongmen such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to treat journalists like enemies, it said.
The coordinated effort comes amid Trump’s persistent claims that mainstream media outlets that publish articles critical of him are churning out “fake news.”
Free press advocates have said 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, seven-paragraph 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 criticize 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.
Other papers joined in, defending their place in society — from upholding the truth to simply saving people time.
“At a practical level, we journalists sit through boring government meetings and learn about public school financing formulas, so you don’t have to,” the Arizona Daily Star said. “It’s not as lofty a statement as the First Amendment, but it serves.”
Free press advocates have said that 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 Center and is dean of communications at Middle Tennessee State University.
However, Paulson questioned whether editorials would be effective.
“The people who read editorials don’t need to be convinced,” he said. “They are not the ones trying to shout you down at presidential rallies.”
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