Get Even More Visitors To Your Blog, Upgrade To A Business Listing >>

Trump’s war on journalism


The “reign of King Trump” has begun, said Robert Reich in Salon.com, and if there’s anything tyrants hate, it’s “the free Press.” Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump wore his disdain for the “disgusting” and “dishonest” media as a badge of honor, and at a surreal news conference last week, he dashed any hope that this was just a pose. To applause from a sycophantic cheering section of his aides, now-President Trump told lie after lie, simply ignored any questions he didn’t want to answer, and verbally attacked CNN’s Jim Acosta because his network reported correctly that intelligence officials had warned Trump of widely circulating rumors that Russia has blackmail information on him. Then Trump press secretary Sean Spicer admitted the new administration is planning to move the White House press corps out of its long-standing West Wing office to a nearby building, and dilute the 50 real journalists with dozens of fringe bloggers and right-wing talk-show radio hosts who openly support Trump. Journalism was already in a “weakened state” because of the slow collapse of the newspaper industry, said Jay Rosen in PressThink.org. Now we have the swearing-in of an authoritarian president who calls all unflattering stories “fake news” and relies on “whipping up hatred” against reporters and news organizations. For the press, “winter is coming.”
The press brought this on itself with its “malpractice,” said George Neumayr in WashingtonExaminer.com. During the campaign, biased journalists did everything they could to prevent Trump from winning. Since the election, they’ve been working to delegitimize him, an effort that culminated in BuzzFeed’s disgraceful decision to publish last week’s lurid dossier of unverified claims against Trump. Sorry, but when you violate basic journalistic standards, you have no “sacred right to be called upon at press conferences.” The simple fact is that the press needs Trump more than he needs it, said Dustin Steeve in TheFederalist.com. As Trump demonstrated throughout the campaign, he can use Twitter to “reach the American people directly through social media” and circumvent the media’s filter. A new era is dawning.
Trump may not need the press, said Margaret Sullivan in The Washington Post, but the rest of us do. By holding politicians accountable and uncovering the truths they try to hide, journalists provide a vital bulwark against authoritarianism a bulwark Trump seems determined to undermine. The press and the American people are tumbling “through a looking glass and into an alternative universe,” said Damon Linker in TheWeek.com. Trump seems to truly believe that whatever he says at the moment is true, regardless of the facts or what he said yesterday. In this postmodern reality, everything will be “contestable, up for grabs, a matter of dispute.”
We journalists should stop being “crybabies,” said Josh Marshall in TalkingPointsMemo.com. If Trump tries to govern as an authoritarian strongman, journalists should be “unbowed and aggressive” in defending our democracy. Reporters don’t need a desk in the White House to dig for proof that Trump is lying, profiting off the presidency, or abusing his authority. “The answer to attacks on journalism is always more journalism.” Trump’s presidency, in fact, promises to be “the greatest gift to journalism” since Richard Nixon, said Jack Shafer in Politico.com. Federal agencies and the intelligence community will leak like a sieve, and so will Trump’s many enemies within the Republican Party. It may feel like winter at the moment, but it will soon turn into “journalistic spring.”


This post first appeared on FOXI News, please read the originial post: here

Share the post

Trump’s war on journalism

×

Subscribe to Foxi News

Get updates delivered right to your inbox!

Thank you for your subscription

×