In recent months, Donald Trump has subtly escalated his war on the freedom of the press. The president still uses his favorite epithet, “fake news,” seemingly on a weekly basis, but earlier this summer he adopted a new phrase, calling the media the “enemy of the people.”
Trump uses “fake news” to discredit critical, but honest reporting of his and his administration’s actions. However, “enemy of the people” is darker rhetoric than “fake news”; it feels less like an expression of Trump’s own outrage and more like a calculated attempt to get the public to see the media the same way he does.
Trump’s condemnation of the free press is not without precedent in American history; in fact, he wasn’t even the first president to refer to the press as an “enemy.” Richard Nixon once told the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that “the press is your enemy,” although he had the good sense to do that in private.
Still, Nixon made his hostility to the press known, especially when he tried to ban The New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers. In the ensuing Supreme Court case, New York Times Co. v. United States, the court ruled in favor of the Times, with Justice Hugo Black writing: “To find that the President has ‘inherent power’ to halt the publication of news … would wipe out the First Amendment and destroy the fundamental liberty and security of the very people the Government hopes to make ‘secure.'”
Had the court ruled in favor of the government, the president would have effectively been given the power to censor the press before it could even publish.
It isn’t hard to imagine what Trump would do if given such power, but he’s already been able to do a lot without it. He wasn’t even president yet when he began revoking press credentials for publications that called out his lies, and he has continued to favor news outlets such as Fox and Breitbart, whose coverage borders on veneration.
If public trust in the media isn’t at an all-time low, it can’t be too far off, thanks to the president’s constant assault on “fake news.” One of his latest attacks would have had George Orwell turning in his grave: “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”
President’s authority divides
Journalists are under attack because we remember every slight, slander or outright lie that the president has said from the day he announced his campaign to the present moment. We remind the public of the abhorrent things he has said about Mexicans, Muslims, women and other groups. We call out his lies when he claims that he got North Korea to agree to denuclearization, or that he has signed more bills than any other president, or that he would have won the popular vote if not for voter fraud — among countless others.
Trump’s failure to protect the rights and freedoms of all Americans, and his commitment to undermining and muddying the truth at every turn, makes him the true enemy of the people.
It is not the job of a journalist to merely repeat the words of those in power, but to analyze and deconstruct them, and to discredit them if they are untruthful. Our refusal to let the American people forget how their president has failed them makes us their defenders, not their enemies. Now more than ever, when Trump uses his authority to divide rather than unite, our work is essential.
Jacob Nierenberg is a reporting intern with The Columbian. He wrote this in conjunction with a national effort by newspapers to dispute President Trump’s assertion that the media is an “enemy of the people.” The Columbian’s editorial about the issue was published Thursday.
