The Dangerous Assault on Free-flow of Information
By James Donahue
We all know that President Trump’s scuffle with CNN reporter Jim Acosta and the legal battle over Acosta’s right to due process has been making headlines. That Acosta was reinstated as a member of the White House media crew by court order was the proper outcome of this issue. But it appears to only be the tip of a mountain of a growing conflict between the power figures and the public’s right to know what these people are up to . . . not only in the United States but apparently in other parts of of the world.
It goes without saying that dictators and corrupt politicians resent being questioned and exposed by an active member of the press. The recent murder of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul is a perfect example of this growing clash. Khashoggi had written stories critical of the Saudi royal family which apparently led to the mob-style killing when he entered the consulate on October 2.
That Mr. Trump is refusing to speak out about the Khashoggi killing or take action against the Saudi royal family strongly suggests that he condoned the killing. And that suggests that the mindset of Trump and the Washington gang surrounding him is moving into dictatorial territory.
Since taking office Trump has made it clear that he strongly objects to being questioned by the media. He has held very few personal confrontations with the Washington Press Corps and his appointed press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders feeds especially scripted news releases in his place.
A report by Cody Fenwick for AlterNet noted that after being forced to reinstate Acosta, the Trump White House issued what was described as “draconian rules” for members of the press corps during weekly confrontations. Reporters are now allowed to ask only one single question without a follow-up. They may only ask this question when recognized by the moderator. If the reporter insists on asking for a clarification they are threatened with being removed from the room.
Enforcing rules like that will make it almost impossible for reporters to dig into important issues and get complete news stories concerning presidential actions.
In the daily quest to cover the actions of the president the media has learned to lean heavily on “tweets” published by Mr. Trump via the Internet. Trump has been issuing important and often conflicting policy statements with his short blurbs on the Twitter social networking service. It became common for the president to declare many of these reports as “fake news” when he found news interpretations of his actions to be embarrassing and/or critical of him.
The Trump “fake news” and “enemies of the people” attacks have spread dangerously into various aspects of the social media. It has thus become impossible to determine which news reports are fake and which are true or if we can even trust the media to be presenting the honest truth. His latest idea is to launch his own “state run” television network, obviously designed to counter network news stories with his own Trump-styled news.
In a recent interview with The Hill reporter James Risen said he considered Trump’s attack on Acosta a “symbol” of his broader war against journalism. Risen called it “demagoguing” the media “in a way we haven’t seen in modern American history.”
In its legal battle on behalf of Acosta, CNN accused Trump of violating the First and Fourth Amendments and said the actions “threaten all journalists and news organizations.”
The very profession of journalist has been under severe attack in all parts of the world. In a BBC news report in May, 2018, it was noted that over 2,500 news reporters and their associates had been murdered since 1990 and up to 32 killed in 2018 alone. The story stated that 82 world journalists died on the job in 2017. The Khashoggi killing was not counted in these numbers.
Statistics suggest that the largest number of these killings in 2018 have occurred in Russia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Mexico and the United States. More than 300 journalists were imprisoned because of the work they were doing.
A major reason for imprisoning journalists is because of the reporter’s refusal to reveal confidential news sources. The protection of sources is a major issue for all reporters working in the field. Without confidential sources it would often be impossible for working reporters to learn the secret actions of political and economic powers operating behind closed doors. Thus we have the conflict between dictatorial powers and the media.
There is yet another very subtle, but disturbing trend that appears to be making it difficult if not impossible to acquire certain information via the Internet. In recent weeks the search engines have begun blocking published papers concerning certain controversial political issues. Controversial photos, political cartoons and stories appear to be selectively removed from public viewing and/or use as resource information by research journalists.
By James Donahue
We all know that President Trump’s scuffle with CNN reporter Jim Acosta and the legal battle over Acosta’s right to due process has been making headlines. That Acosta was reinstated as a member of the White House media crew by court order was the proper outcome of this issue. But it appears to only be the tip of a mountain of a growing conflict between the power figures and the public’s right to know what these people are up to . . . not only in the United States but apparently in other parts of of the world.
It goes without saying that dictators and corrupt politicians resent being questioned and exposed by an active member of the press. The recent murder of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul is a perfect example of this growing clash. Khashoggi had written stories critical of the Saudi royal family which apparently led to the mob-style killing when he entered the consulate on October 2.
That Mr. Trump is refusing to speak out about the Khashoggi killing or take action against the Saudi royal family strongly suggests that he condoned the killing. And that suggests that the mindset of Trump and the Washington gang surrounding him is moving into dictatorial territory.
Since taking office Trump has made it clear that he strongly objects to being questioned by the media. He has held very few personal confrontations with the Washington Press Corps and his appointed press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders feeds especially scripted news releases in his place.
A report by Cody Fenwick for AlterNet noted that after being forced to reinstate Acosta, the Trump White House issued what was described as “draconian rules” for members of the press corps during weekly confrontations. Reporters are now allowed to ask only one single question without a follow-up. They may only ask this question when recognized by the moderator. If the reporter insists on asking for a clarification they are threatened with being removed from the room.
Enforcing rules like that will make it almost impossible for reporters to dig into important issues and get complete news stories concerning presidential actions.
In the daily quest to cover the actions of the president the media has learned to lean heavily on “tweets” published by Mr. Trump via the Internet. Trump has been issuing important and often conflicting policy statements with his short blurbs on the Twitter social networking service. It became common for the president to declare many of these reports as “fake news” when he found news interpretations of his actions to be embarrassing and/or critical of him.
The Trump “fake news” and “enemies of the people” attacks have spread dangerously into various aspects of the social media. It has thus become impossible to determine which news reports are fake and which are true or if we can even trust the media to be presenting the honest truth. His latest idea is to launch his own “state run” television network, obviously designed to counter network news stories with his own Trump-styled news.
In a recent interview with The Hill reporter James Risen said he considered Trump’s attack on Acosta a “symbol” of his broader war against journalism. Risen called it “demagoguing” the media “in a way we haven’t seen in modern American history.”
In its legal battle on behalf of Acosta, CNN accused Trump of violating the First and Fourth Amendments and said the actions “threaten all journalists and news organizations.”
The very profession of journalist has been under severe attack in all parts of the world. In a BBC news report in May, 2018, it was noted that over 2,500 news reporters and their associates had been murdered since 1990 and up to 32 killed in 2018 alone. The story stated that 82 world journalists died on the job in 2017. The Khashoggi killing was not counted in these numbers.
Statistics suggest that the largest number of these killings in 2018 have occurred in Russia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Mexico and the United States. More than 300 journalists were imprisoned because of the work they were doing.
A major reason for imprisoning journalists is because of the reporter’s refusal to reveal confidential news sources. The protection of sources is a major issue for all reporters working in the field. Without confidential sources it would often be impossible for working reporters to learn the secret actions of political and economic powers operating behind closed doors. Thus we have the conflict between dictatorial powers and the media.
There is yet another very subtle, but disturbing trend that appears to be making it difficult if not impossible to acquire certain information via the Internet. In recent weeks the search engines have begun blocking published papers concerning certain controversial political issues. Controversial photos, political cartoons and stories appear to be selectively removed from public viewing and/or use as resource information by research journalists.