From the get-go, journalism has been under sustained and systematic attack from the Trump administration which has sought to undermine the credibility and weaken the resolve of any media outlets that have dared to report on it in anything other than hagiographic terms.
This is a multi-pronged attack.
The administration takes out spurious lawsuits against media companies, such as the Des Moines Register and CBS, which are costly to defend, drain resources and sap morale.
It repeatedly calls into question the probity of reporters and media companies that investigate it. Accurate reporting is loudly denounced as “fake news” and journalists the “enemy of the people”.
Intimidation is rife. Good journalists are publicly insulted and their motives questioned. “Sick” and “deranged” are two adjectives Trump recently used to describe senior New York Times journalists, raising concerns about their safety and security.
Serious mainstream media is being crowded out and marginalised. Associated Press is still struggling, despite winning court orders, to regain full access to White House press briefings — all because it asserted its first amendment right by continuing to call the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico.
The White House is increasingly giving press pool access to right wing influencers and networks that are uncritically supportive, at the expense of proper, objective journalists.
Finally, the administration is using its power to force billionaire media owners to rein in recalcitrant editors and journalists or risk losing out on lucrative government contracts in other areas of their business empires.
All of this is having real world consequences. Many journalists and their publishers are being cowed into submission, there is increasing self-censorship, the public is not properly informed, the administration is not properly scrutinised and when journalists are not looking, as we all know, bad stuff happens.
To mark Trump’s first 100 days, Reporters without Borders has published ‘Trump’s war on the press: 10 numbers from the US President’s first 100 days’ and the Committee to Protect Journalists has released a special report, ‘Alarm bells: Trump’s first 100 days ramp up fear for the press, democracy’.
Both well worth reading – timely reminders that press freedom can never be taken for granted.
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