This post first appeared in the May 11 Wilson Times.
In my 33 years as a
newspaper editor, I became accustomed to people complaining about press
coverage or the “Mainstream Media,” a phrase popularized by Republican vice
presidential candidate Sarah Palin, as if the media (a plural noun) were one
massive news organization promulgating one-sided views of the world. Instead,
it was (and mostly still is) a variety of thousands of news outlets in cities
and small towns across the country.
Although newspapers have
changed drastically with big news corporations and even hedge funds buying up
independent newspapers in hopes of making profits by consolidating production,
cutting jobs and reducing pay, most smaller papers (about as “mainstream” as
you can get) are still largely independent.
So it came as something of a
surprise to me to read in a column by Charles Blow of the New York Times cite this
statistic: “A Quinnipiac University poll last week found
that Republicans say 49 to 36 percent “that the news media is the enemy of the
people. Every other listed party, gender, education, age and racial group says
the media is an important part of democracy.”
This tells me that President
Trump’s strategy of crushing the news media, regardless of what the First
Amendment says, is succeeding. Trump has attacked the news media and news
reporters viciously and repeatedly since he began his presidential campaign in
2015. He calls reporters “the enemy of the people” and gets away with it. He
tells his followers that you can’t believe what you read or hear in the news.
His followers are so loyal that I have to assume they don’t believe weather
reports or details of new laws state legislatures or Congress passes or reports
of forest fires or wars. It’s all “fake news” until they read about it in a
tweet from their leader.
Trump seems determined to
undermine the First Amendment. He wants the public to distrust the news media.
He wants to limit the ability of news organizations to report on his
administration. He has banned certain reporters and certain organizations from
press briefings. He has threatened to launch a federal investigation into
“Saturday Night Live” because it has mocked him. He has said he wants to change
libel laws to make it easier for political figures to collect damages because
of honest errors or disputed facts in news reports.
Trump has succeeded at least
this far: A poll last year found that 43 percent of Republicans polled agreed
that “the president should have the authority to close news outlets engaged in
bad behavior.” When the president can shut down news outlets, there is no
freedom of speech or of the press.
The Founding Fathers had a
reason for including a free press in the First Amendment. They knew that the
new nation’s future depended upon an informed electorate who would choose
wisely based on a diversity of sources. A free press allows anyone to report on
what they know or have witnessed.
Freedom of the press is an
extension of freedom of speech. Editors and publishers have avoided special
protections for the news media, depending instead on every citizen’s right to
be informed through public records laws and open meetings laws. Notice that
when an authoritarian regime takes power, one of its first moves is to shut
down all independent news organizations, thereby limiting the information the
public receives to the information the government wants the public to have.
This strategy has been used in Bolshevik Russia, in Nazi Germany, in Franco’s
Spain, and more recently in Iran, Egypt and other authoritarian countries.
Knowingly or not, Trump is
following the playbook of oppressive regimes, and at least some American
citizens are following along.
Hal Tarleton is a former editor of The Wilson Daily
Times. Contact him at haltarleton@myglnc.com.
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