NEW YORK, Nov 8, 2024 (BSS/AFP) – Donald Trump’s election has raised fears he
will double down on his notorious animosity toward the media, which he has
repeatedly attacked with vitriol and lawsuits.
Following his victory Trump wasted no time in deriding two news channels that
carry commentators critical of the president-elect, describing CNN and MSNBC
as “the enemy camp.”
That outburst had echoes of the “enemies of the people” label he applied to
the press during his first White House term.
At a rally shortly before the election, he mocked journalists, saying that
any would-be assassin would have to “shoot through” reporters to get to him,
after two failed attempts on his life.
His team insisted there had been a misunderstanding.
During his campaign, he also threatened to revoke the broadcast licenses of
ABC and CBS, two networks he claimed were biased in favor of his election
rival Vice President Kamala Harris.
Such a maneuver would depend on complex procedures undertaken by the Federal
Communications Commission.
In his first presidency between 2017 and 2021, critical journalists were
denied access to the White House, including CNN’s Jim Acosta, who was only
allowed back in after a legal battle.
“We are concerned. We’ve been concerned since he began using inflammatory
anti-media rhetoric during his first campaign, back in 2015,” said Katherine
Jacobsen, of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
In a 2020 report, CPJ condemned Trump’s use of libel lawsuits to intimidate
journalists, as well as the White House’s attempts to uncover the identities
of reporters’ sources in the wake of leaks.
Once Trump is sworn in, he “will appoint more judges who will try to restrict
freedom of the press”, said University of Maryland broadcast journalism
professor Mark Feldstein.
Freedom of speech is protected by the US Constitution’s First Amendment, with
a right to criticize enshrined in a landmark 1964 Supreme Court ruling.
But Jacobsen said that by continually accusing journalists of disinformation,
Trump had undermined public trust in the media, at a time when the news
industry is struggling to stay afloat financially.
– ‘Just exhausted’ –
“Trump very much speaks to this kind of anti-establishment, anti-institution
sentiment in the United States, and has wrapped the media into that in a very
concerning way,” she said.
Trump’s mischaracterization of the January 6, 2021 insurrection in which his
supporters stormed the US Capital to prevent certification of the 2020
election is a prime example of the Republican’s playbook.
“There are two completely different narratives about what happened, one that
journalists have documented and shown to be true, and then Trump’s version of
events, which seems to stray from reality in a very concerning way,” Jacobsen
said.
Trump’s boosters insist that the mainstream media are out of touch with
everyday America.
Despite the headwinds, two of the country’s most prominent newspapers, The
New York Times and The Washington Post, have both published a string of
scoops about the Trump administration.
And it was The Wall Street Journal, owned by conservative media mogul Rupert
Murdoch, that revealed hidden payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels,
which led to the historic conviction of the former president last spring.
“I don’t know that we’re going to see the same kind of surge (of readers)
that we saw with the first Trump term because I think people are just
exhausted,” said Northeastern journalism professor Dan Kennedy.
“There’s now so much Trump fatigue that news outlets can’t count on an
economic boost,” agreed Feldstein.
The campaign was marked by The Washington Post’s decision not to endorse
either candidate, a choice that drew criticism and was interpreted as a sign
of pressure from its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in a bid not to
alienate Trump.
But Bezos defended the position as prudent at a time when “Americans don’t
trust the news media.”
