These Are Dangerous Times for Writers and Reporters in the U.S.
Over the weekend I attended the Festival of Books. It’s a wonderful event, one celebrating the written word, storytelling, the exchange of ideas, and the freedom Americans believe in when it comes to self-expression.
This year’s event was bigger and better than ever. There were more booksellers, authors, and informational panels, along with thirty thousand or so humans jamming the expanded exhibits.
I bought two books I’ve been meaning to read -- Robin Diangelo’s White Fragility and Jean Guerrero’s Crux - A Cross Border Memoir. But the main reason for being there was an afternoon discussion: “Lies, Racism, and Leadership.”
On the stage were Union-Tribune Managing Editor Lora Cicalo, Union Tribune Editorial and Opinion Director Matthew T. Hall, and NBC7/Telemundo Assignment Editor Lindsay Hood. The crowd of two hundred or so attendees were mostly aging baby boomers, a sad observation about who cares about the topics at hand.
Knowing how hard the U-T’s Matt Hall and others have worked at educating the public about the role of the media and the disturbing rise of deception as a political tool, I expected more than a “diversity is good” and “we’re responsible people” discussion.
(Don’t get me wrong, everybody on that stage had important things to say and said them well.)
We moved past the “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” phase of criticizing the press for its obedience to corporate overlords, to “the press is the enemy of the people” assault of the very idea of truth supported by facts.
The days when owning a printing press was tantamount to printing money are past. And the concept of a free press is being sublimated by a nihilist movement spanning the entire political spectrum. “Me” and “My” are the only things that matter to these folks, regardless if it concerns personal wealth or intellectual prowess.
Debate is possible only where points of view are based on some version of reality. When today’s “everybody knows” fact becomes a “people are saying” fabrication, compromise isn’t an option.
The press, whether it’s the mass media version or citizen journalism, is presently endangered like every other entitlement alluded to in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The almighty New York Times has discovered a group of the president’s allies who are seeking to personally discredit reporters and editors who work for mainstream news organizations publishing stories critical of the administration.
I guess these Trump toadys are somehow news because they wear suits and ties, as opposed to the not-very-underground world of despicables, who’ve turned bile and threats into a cottage industry targeting those who dare to express themselves without a corporate shield.
Women and people of color, even those who have transcended the limitations of the bloggerverse, are frequent targets.
From Columbia Journalism Review:
On Tuesday, a new report from Amnesty International put some numbers behind those kinds of incidents, and the numbers are not good. According to the study, which analyzed hundreds of thousands of tweets sent in 2017, female journalists and politicians were subjected to some kind of harassment or abuse on the social network roughly every 30 seconds, and women of color experienced significantly higher levels of abuse: they were 84 percent more likely to be mentioned in abusive or harassing tweets. (The full results, part of Amnesty’s Troll Patrol project, are available here.)
Things have moved past trolling by (usually anonymous) incels and racists to a new plane, where the techniques are being used to enforce the ideological standards of a would-be authoritarian regime.
From the New York Times:
But using journalistic techniques to target journalists and news organizations as retribution for — or as a warning not to pursue — coverage critical of the president is fundamentally different from the well-established role of the news media in scrutinizing people in positions of power.
“If it’s clearly retaliatory, it’s clearly an attack, it’s clearly not journalism,” said Leonard Downie Jr., who was the executive editor of The Post from 1991 to 2008. Tension between a president and the news media that covers him is nothing new, Mr. Downie added. But an organized, wide-scale political effort to intentionally humiliate journalists and others who work for media outlets is.
“It’s one thing for Spiro Agnew to call everyone in the press ‘nattering nabobs of negativism,’” he said, referring to the former vice president’s famous critique of how journalists covered President Richard M. Nixon. “And another thing to investigate individuals in order to embarrass them publicly and jeopardize their employment.”
Using the amplification possibilities of right wing media outlets like Breitbart, and the social media feeds of people like Donald Trump, Jr., I’m certain these operations will become central to the upcoming election cycle.
Here’s Tom Jones from The Poynter Report:
Will this group find examples of stupid social media activity? Probably. Might it find journalists who had some legal or financial trouble in their distant past? Perhaps. Might there be some embarrassing text messages or emails uncovered? Possibly.
But ask yourself, what’s more important: What the president is doing right now or what some unknown copy editor who has nothing to do with a Trump story said on Twitter a decade ago? Which is more important to our democracy: holding the president accountable or seeing to it that a production assistant at CNN is punished for an Instagram post from a New Year’s Eve party five years ago?
This operation has no interest in making our country better or supporting an independent press. It only is interested in distracting the public with unimportant items to allow the president to rule ungoverned, unchecked and unhampered.
***
Observers from outside the United States have noticed a change in the country, one with deeply troubling implications. From NPR:
The United States has become a less safe place for journalists, and the threats they face are becoming the standard, according to a new report by an international press freedom organization.
Reporters Sans Frontières, or Reporters Without Borders, dropped the U.S. to No. 48 out of 180 on its annual World Press Freedom Index, three notches lower than its place last year. The move downgrades the country from a "satisfactory" place to work freely to a "problematic" one for journalists.
"Never before have US journalists been subjected to so many death threats or turned so often to private security firms for protection," the report stated.
Ten journalists have been physically attacked this year, and 46 since 2017. In January, one reporter was punched in the face and her phone stolen, while interviewing voters in California.
It’s not just Trump’s fans who are actively chipping away at a free press. Government agencies are also getting in on the action. When caught, apologies may (or may not) be given, and the harassment continues.
After all, what have they got to lose, when the commander in chief thinks everything reported is about him personally.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1163063728218263552?s=20
Read how the reporting on the President’s idea about dealing with hurricanes went from reported 'fact' to justified to fiction on social media. (No extra charge for the snark)
https://twitter.com/4everNeverTrump/status/1166000977469530112?s=20
https://twitter.com/IndivisibleTeam/status/1165993889465098241?s=20
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1165918301932916736?s=20
Government employees charged with border and immigration security have taken the lead in finding ways to intimidate journalists.
News reports in February began documenting how CBP repeatedly subjected journalists to lengthy interrogation and confiscations of their cameras and notes at border facilities in San Diego and elsewhere.
Via the ACLU, which is engaged in litigation on these incidents:
The reported facts in this case look like a First Amendment disaster. Department of Homeland Security officials created a list of activists, advocates, and journalists who were working with or reporting on the migrant caravan in order to flag them for lengthy detentions and questioning at the U.S. border. And it appears that many activists and lawyers were targeted solely because they engaged in speech and association that are at the core of First Amendment protections — namely, speaking out against government policies regarding treatment of asylum seekers or engaging in legal representation of asylum seekers.
DHS also singled out journalists who reported on migrant issues. Many journalists were subjected to lengthy questioning at the border about what they were reporting on and who they had spoken to. Some were even denied entry to Mexico, apparently at the behest of U.S. government officials.
This weekend, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reporter Carolyn Dunn was denied entry into the US. Apparently reporters from Canada working for the Canadian press now need a Media Visa, despite State Department policy, because they are “imported labor.”...
https://twitter.com/carolyndunncbc/status/1165751565870911490?s=20
But wait! There’s more!
A British journalist working for Empire Magazine was accosted by a CPB agent at LAX after presenting his press visa.
https://twitter.com/jamescdyer/status/1164647011615989761?s=20
Film writer Dyer was allowed to enter after explaining that his assignment was to write about Star Wars movies. The director of field operations at CPB did reach out and apologize following widespread chatter on social media.
Finally, to tie it all together, here’s a snip from Fox News talking head Juan Cole’s opinion piece published at The Hill. Cole made the mistake of disagreeing with the President’s trade policies regarding China.
Cole was denounced on Twitter by Trump, followed by a barrage of hate speech and threats coming from MAGA types:
Allow me to make two points:
First, what happened to me is a chilling example of how this president does not respect the First Amendment rights of any journalist.
He long ago crossed a bright line by labeling journalists the “enemy of the American people.” During the 2016 campaign, his supporters could be heard shouting “Luggenpresse” — the Nazi-popularized German word meaning "Lying Press" — to American reporters.
And in 2017 he tweeted NBC and other broadcast networks are so “distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked.”
My second point has to do with his support for online provocateurs who delight in trolling liberals while feeding conservatives a diet of fear and grievance.
In July, he held a “Social Media Summit” at the White House with a guest list that included the man famed for pushing a distorted edit of a video to malign former Vice President Joe Biden as a babbling idiot.
“Instead of combatting Russian social media misinformation ... the President has invited trolls, conspiracy theorists, anti-Semites ... to the White House,” tweeted Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.).
The president’s top message to these fake content providers or non-journalists is a promise to prevent social media outlets, such as Facebook and Twitter, from cracking down on them.
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Email me at DougPorter@WordsAndDeedsBlog.com
Lead image via Blue Diamond Gallery