Donald Trump attacks press freedom

This video from the USA says about itself:

27 January 2017

Steve Bannon just threatened the media to shut their mouths. John Iadarola, Michael Shure, and Jimmy Dore, the hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.

“Anyone who cares about language has been repeatedly appalled by the crudeness of Donald Trump’s rhetoric and by the thuggishness of the directives issued by Trump and his cohorts. They have instructed the American people on what to believe, whom to hate and how badly they can behave. And yet we continue to be surprised by each bullying pronouncement, most recently by chief White House strategist Stephen K Bannon’s suggestion that the “humiliated” media might do well to “keep its mouth shut”.

Now that our mainstream newspapers have given up on finding a fair and balanced way to report the president’s lies, now that the country has watched NBC’s Chuck Todd barely conceal his astonishment at Kellyanne Conway’s reference to “alternative facts”, it’s no wonder that the administration’s antipathy toward the press should have become more openly vehement and reckless.

Trump has referred to reporters as being “among the most dishonest people on earth”, and his press secretary insisted that journalists should be “held accountable” for reporting the truth.”

Read more here.

By CJ Atkins in the USA:

Trump attacks free press with dictatorial rhetoric

Wednesday 1st February 2016

By deriding the mediaas the ‘enemies of the people,’ Trump evokes a favoured tactic of authoritarian regimes, writes CJ Atkins

“ENEMIES of the people.” That’s how President Donald Trump describes journalists who offer anything but the same level of fawning coverage of him and his administration as the online alt-right “news” site Breitbart.

He first tweeted out the epithet a couple of weeks ago, adding it to his stockpile of rhetorical ammunition alongside favourites like “fake news.”

This past Friday, he doubled down on his remarks while speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference — a four-day event focused on bringing together grassroots conservative activism to “break through the resistance of Washington’s powerful elites.”

“A few days ago, I called the fake news the enemy of the people because they have no sources — they just make it up,” he said.

This from the man who pushed (without sources) the fantasy that Barack Obama was not a US citizen and refers to Swedish terrorist attacks that never happened.

His top adviser and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon calls the press “the opposition party,” as if it were a partisan political organisation.

And his press secretary Sean Spicer held an invitation-only press “gaggle” on Friday afternoon which excluded a number of major media outlets — the New York Times, the Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, Politico, CNN, the BBC and others.

Including even the right-wing British Daily Mail.

By contrast, journalists from conservative-leaning organisations such as Fox News and right-wing propaganda outlets like the Washington Times,

owned by the ‘Unification Church’ aka the Moonie religious-Big Business cult

Breitbart and One America News Network were on the VIP list. The Associated Press and Time magazine boycotted in protest.

It was a clear directive that when you publish or broadcast what the boss likes, you get special privileges. When you don’t, you get shut out. It’s a not-so-subtle way of encouraging self-censorship, while also telling the rabble to distrust reputable journalism even more. To the legions of Trump voters, the message is stick with the propaganda.

The president and his deputies appear to be making good on his threat to “do something” about journalism that the White House doesn’t like. Another president, Richard Nixon, also once declared: “The press is the enemy.” But Carl Bernstein, one of the Washington Post< reporters who exposed Nixon’s Watergate scandal in the 1970s, says Trump’s rhetoric “may be more insidious and dangerous.” There is a similarity, he says, “in trying to divide the country, and make the conduct of the press the issue, instead of the conduct of the president.”

…

Taken as a whole, the words and actions of President Trump and his inner circle constitute a wide-ranging attack on the free press that is unprecedented in modern times. And his embrace of the term “enemy of the people,” a phrase more associated with dictators than democrats, makes these developments all the more troubling.

The term ‘enemy of the people’ became well-known internationally after 1882, when Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen published his play An Enemy of the People. In the play, a doctor, Thomas Stockmann, discovers health hazards in baths. The local newspaper intends to write about these health dangers. But that would mean conflict with the political and business establishment. So, the paper flips-flops, attacking the doctor. A mob of supporters of the mayor breaks the doctor’s windows, and Stockmann’s landlord evicts the family of the ‘enemy of the people’ doctor from their home.

The Roman emperor Nero was the first historical figure to earn the title of “enemy of the people.” He holidayed in places not too dissimilar from the 126-room, 110,000 square foot Mar-a-Lago estate while the economic future of his people crumbled.

In recent times, the phrase has been associated with the mass purges in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. In condemning the repression carried out by Joseph Stalin, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said that branding someone an “enemy of the people” was a means of shutting down debate and silencing opposition.

Khrushchev said: “This term automatically made it unnecessary that the … errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven. It made possible the use of the cruelest repression, violating all norms of … legality against anyone who in any way disagreed …”

While Trump’s attempt to tamp down unfriendly press coverage may be rather mild in comparison to the Stalinist terror, the goal of shutting up anyone who disagrees with the leader is all too apparent. It’s a development that goes against the principles of democracy and should worry all US citizens.

Trump’s attacks may be the most insidious and acute threat to the free press, but there are others. The continuing concentration of ownership and control of media outlets in the US threatens the diversity of perspectives and news coverage necessary for a free and functioning democratic society.

In 1983, the media landscape was dominated by approximately 50 large companies. Four years later, it was down to 29. In the late 1990s, 10. Today, only six corporations control more than 90 per cent of the media market in the United States.

Journalism is under threat on multiple fronts. Many traditional media channels and local outlets — especially, but not only, newspapers — are collapsing under technological and financial pressures. Newsrooms — those that survive anyway — are cutting staff to the bare bones. Money for the hard work of investigative journalism is shrivelling as shrinking profit margins make it unfeasible for all but the biggest of outlets.

There is also the threat of actual fake news — not just the unfriendly coverage President Trump drones on about. Too many people are falling into the habit of only following (or, thanks to social media algorithms, only receiving) reporting that reinforces their prejudices.

And though they may be important allies in exposing what the Trump administration is up to, the corporate-controlled conglomerates that dominate the media scene cannot be counted on to stem the tide.

As journalism professor Robert W McChesney wrote nearly 20 years ago, the big press conglomerates may sometimes have a positive impact, given that they will chase profit without respect to repressive governments or customs. But these same companies, he said, are ultimately “politically conservative, because the media giants are significant beneficiaries of the current social structure around the world. Any upheaval in property or social relations — particularly to the extent that it reduces the power of business — is not in their interest.”

Professional journalists of whatever employer must join in resisting the machinations of Trump, Bannon, and Spicer, but we can’t only rely on Comcast, Time Warner or The Walt Disney Company to save the freedom of expression in the United States.

It will fall to all of the citizen reporters, local editors, anonymous sources, conscious news consumers, and everyone else to do the job.

‘I DO IT TO DISCREDIT YOU’ Trump revealed to veteran CBS journalist Lesley Stahl exactly why he regularly attacks the press: “I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.” [HuffPost]

TRUMP SUPPORTER THREATENS TO SHOOT CNN JOURNALISTS A Trump supporter called C-SPAN Friday and threatened “to shoot” CNN reporters Brian Stelter and Don Lemon. The president continued his attack on the press Sunday, claiming the media “purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War!” In response, Fox News asked Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton which wars the media have caused. He ducked the question. [HuffPost]