These are dark days for the rhetoric being flung around about journalists. Undermining the importance of the free press has spiraled dangerously into undermining the basic physical safety of journalists in comments made by our own president. And that’s not acceptable.
In the history of modern presidents, President Trump has expressed an unprecedented level of animus toward the press. He has repeatedly called the Washington Post and CNN’s coverage “fake news.” In August, he told Fox News that 80 percent of the media are “the enemy of the people.” That same month, a CNN reporter was barred from a White House press conference for asking apparently impertinent questions.
Even more concerning are Trump’s statements hedging around the fact that officials in Saudi Arabia murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an outspoken critic of the Saudi government. His murder and the Saudi government’s attempted coverup sparked outrage and condemnation from officials in Turkey, France, Germany and the U.K. Trump, however, has refused to take a hardline stance against Saudi Arabia, saying Tuesday at the Oval Office: “I want to see the facts first. Saudi Arabia has been a great ally.”
Closer to home, Trump has unabashedly glorified violence against the press. “Any guy who can do a body-slam, he’s my guy,” he said about Rep. Greg Gianforte while speaking in Montana. As a candidate for office, Gianforte assaulted a Guardian reporter who asked him a question about a healthcare bill. Gianforte pleaded guilty to the assault in June 2017.
The Guardian issued a statement this month decrying Trump’s remarks. “To celebrate an attack on a journalist who was simply doing his job is an attack on the First Amendment by someone who has taken an oath to defend it,” Guardian U.S. Editor John Mulholland wrote. “In the aftermath of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, it runs the risk of inviting other assaults on journalists both here and across the world where they often face far greater threats.”
Trump’s comments are problematic by themselves, but they are even more alarming because of that invitation. Coming from the commander-in-chief of the United States, his behavior widely condones and even inspires verbal and physical attacks on members of the press.
Recent months have seen an escalation of threats and attacks on journalists. Some take clear inspiration from the president, such as man spouting the “enemy of the people” line who was arrested for threatening to murder Boston Globe journalists. This past summer, a man shot and killed four journalists and a sales assistant at a local Maryland newspaper office. His grievance: in 2011 the paper wrote about his conviction for criminal harassment, information available in the public record.
When news broke about the shooting, I was working as an intern at the Jackson Hole News&Guide, a local weekly paper. On a lunch break, someone from sales joked how they would put a sign up on the door of the office letting the world know the journalists are upstairs. (Sales is downstairs.) I laughed, but later I found myself seriously considering what I would do if someone with a gun open fired on the newsroom. My desk was flush against the wall, I noticed, so that wouldn’t be much protection.
I stopped myself mid duck-and-cover thought to wonder if I should have picked a different summer job. Why are we, journalists, asking tough questions and publishing articles about the answers, at risk to our personal safety, when we could be scooping ice cream behind the safety of a soda fountain counter?
The answer: the job of the press is integral to a free democracy. It’s a job that has to be done, and done well, to keep the public informed and to keep figures of power under eye. Reporters haven’t forgotten this. It’s time the public remembered.
