8/16/18: In the face of the president’s unrelenting attacks and claims that the media are “the enemy of the people,” the editors of the Boston Globe make the decision to fight back. The Globe coordinates a nationwide response. More than 350 newspapers agree to publish editorials critical of Trump’s stance.
Those papers include some of the greatest in the nation, others with as few as 4,000 subscribers.
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The Globe, for example, exposed the scandal of Catholic priests and their abuse. |
____________________
“We are not the enemy. We are the people.”
Editors of the Valencia County
News-Bulletin
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Marjorie Pritchard of the Globe explains why this all matters. “Our words will differ,” she says. “But at least we can agree that such attacks are alarming.”
“I hope it would educate readers to realize that an attack on the First Amendment is unacceptable. We are a free and independent press…one of the most sacred principles enshrined in the Constitution [emphasis added throughout].”
Among organizations that come to the support of the Globe are the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), the Press Association, the New England Newspaper and Press Association and the Radio Television Digital News Association. The ASNE says it has no choice but to join the protest: “Publications, whatever their politics, could make a powerful statement by standing together in the common defense of their profession and the vital role it plays in government for and by the people.”
A list of those supporting the call includes several papers
the president routinely attacks as “Fake News.” The New York Times, alone, has caught Trump and his aides in a
series of blatant lies.
The Houston Chronicle, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Miami Herald and Denver Post pen editorials. So do smaller papers, including The Oakridger (Tennessee) and the Griggs County Courier and the Steele County Press (North Dakota). The Philadelphia Inquirer joins the fray. The Kansas City Capital-Journal, one of the few papers to endorse Trump in 2016, takes the side of a free press.
The supposed purveyors of “Fake News” are everywhere. The Martha’s Vineyard Times and Dallas Morning News join the fight. The Bangor Daily News in Maine, the Duluth News Tribune in Minnesota, the Yankton County Observer in South Dakota, and the Bennington Banner in Vermont throw their weight behind the protest. So does the Valencia County News-Bulletin in New Mexico. Editors at that paper are clear. “We are not the enemy,” they insist. “We are the people.”
The honor roll proves long. It includes the Chicago Sun-Times and the Hartford Courant, the Boise Weekly, the Wilbur Republican (Nebraska) and the Star News (North Carolina). The Tucson Sentinel and Arizona Daily Sun represent that state. The Akron Beacon Journal, Athens News and Columbus Dispatch, Ohio publications, Oregon’s Portland Press Herald and Louisiana’s Slidell Independent take a stand.
“Those who try to suffocate the truth.”
A sampling of editorials should make the danger clear to all
but the most obtuse Trump fans. The Des
Moines Register explains:
The true enemies of the people –
and democracy – are those who try to suffocate truth by vilifying and
demonizing the messenger.
…Lesley Stahl, the Emmy
award-winning “60 Minutes” correspondent, recently talked about her November 2016 interview with the
current president – his first after winning the election. She asked him if
he planned to stop attacking the press, something he did repeatedly during his
campaign.
“He said, ‘You know why I do it?
I do it to discredit you all and demean you all, so when you write negative
stories about me, no one will believe
you,’” Stahl said.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch offers warning: “Trump is inflicting massive, and perhaps irreparable, damage to democracy with these attacks.”
The Swift County Monitor News (Minnesota) insists that Trump’s words will lead to attacks on journalists, what you might see in Russia, Myanmar, or Venezuela, where the free press is only a dream.
The Forward, a preeminent Jewish paper, writes:
More than 300 news organizations
around the country, large and small and in-between, are publishing simultaneous
editorials in support of a free press – a pillar of our Constitution enshrined
in its very First Amendment, persistently under attack by the most
potent symbol of our democracy, the president of the United States.
… Jews, like other Americans,
depend on the press to hold the powerful accountable and, as a religious
minority, to stand up for our rights in this raucous, pluralistic society….
When journalists are harassed
for what they publish and demeaned for what they ask; when they are ridiculed,
beaten up, even murdered for simply doing their jobs, then all America suffers.
We are not here only to say nice things about this or any other president. We
are here to report the truth as best we can, so that an informed public
can make its wisest decisions.
The Hays Free Press (Texas) offers this caution:
A dangerous drift began
with a few catchy words tossed out, catchy, but thoughtless, and
dangerous. Talk of “fake news” and calling journalists “enemies of the
people” were terms once used only by dictators. A free and
independent press has guarded democracy since its beginning, sometimes at a
high cost. It’s not perfect, but it’s far superior to controlled or
censored news.
…What would happen if all news outlets just stopped suddenly? What would happen if newspapers ONLY printed one side of the story – the side being promoted by the government?
“Phony
news manufactured by a paid agent of the state.”
E.B. White probably described it
best in his volume published in 1944.
The United States, almost alone
today, offers the liberties and the privileges and the tools of freedom. In
this land the citizens are still invited to write their plays and books, to
paint their pictures, to meet for discussion, to dissent as well as to agree,
to mount soapboxes in the public square, to enjoy education in all subjects
without censorship, to hold court and judge one another, to compose music, to
talk politics with their neighbors without wondering whether the secret police
are listening, to exchange ideas as well as goods, to kid the government when
it needs kidding, and to read real news of real events instead of phony news
manufactured by a paid agent of the state. This is a fact and should give every
person pause.
Government spokespersons from
all entities try to give their side of the story; that’s what they are paid to
do. That is only one side of the story, and giving them free rein without
questioning is not good for our country – or our freedom.
The final word goes to the Kansas City Star:
Not even President Richard
Nixon, who’s original “enemies list” of the 20 private citizens he hoped to use
his public office to “screw” included three journalists, tried to incite violence
against reporters. While stewing privately about Bob Woodward and Carl
Bernstein as “enemies…trying to stick the knife right in our groin,” not even
Nixon tagged the lot of us, Soviet-style, as “enemies of the people.” Nor did
even he dare to take on the idea that our free press is worth protecting.
Perhaps most chilling of all, the Star notes that Trump’s rants are having a toxic effect.
Citing a recent poll, they worry that 44 percent of
Republicans “said Trump should have the autocrat’s power to shut down news
outlets” if he liked.
POSTSCRIPT: This blogger was so horrified by that number that he decided to go straight to the poll, hoping it had been misunderstood.
Among other findings, IPSOS reported: “Some of the limits of public support for freedom of the press are made stark with a quarter of Americans (26%) saying they agree ‘the president should have the authority to close news outlets engaged in bad behavior,’ including a plurality of Republicans (43%).”
Even though the Star
was off by a point (likely a typo and not “Fake News”), it should be clear to
all, and clearly for many Trump supporters it is not. If our current president
can curtail a free press today, the
door will be thrown open for every future president to goose step down the same
path.
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