“Trump Attacks on Press Effective, New Study Finds”
VOA News,
By: Pete Cobus, April 17, 2020
“President Donald Trump’s attacks on the press have been effective at eroding the credibility of the press and undercutting consensus even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to kill hundreds of Americans each day, a newly released study by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said.
The New York-based press freedom group documented increased prosecutions of news sources, libel suits and harassment of journalists in the field and at U.S. border crossings, and cited more than 40 journalists, media law experts, academics and administration officials.
“Some expert observers fear an existential threat to American freedom of the press,” says the study, which examines how the attacks “have empowered autocratic foreign leaders to discredit and restrict the press in their own countries.”
“You can see the pattern, you can see how many authoritarian leaders around the world are going beyond what Trump has done, imposing restrictions on the press, arresting reporters, et cetera,” Leonard Downie Jr., the study’s author and a former executive editor of The Washington Post, told VOA.
Read the full article and study: https://www.voanews.com/press-freedom/trump-attacks-press-effective-new-study-finds
“The Trump Administration and the Media”
Committee to Protect Journalists
Published April 16, 2020
“The Trump administration has stepped up prosecutions of news sources, interfered in the business of media owners, harassed journalists crossing U.S. borders, and empowered foreign leaders to restrict their own media. But Trump’s most effective ploy has been to destroy the credibility of the press, dangerously undermining truth and consensus even as the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to kill tens of thousands of Americans”
- March 19 & 20 he angrily attacked the media saying “the press is very dishonest” in its reporting on his handling of the crisis and journalists “truly do hurt our country.”
- March 18 the President tweeted ““I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously … the Fake News new narrative is disgraceful & false.”
- March 8 the President tweeted “The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to make us look bad. Sad!”
- February 26 the President tweeted “Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible, …”
He has repeatedly called the press “fake news,” “the enemy of the people,” “dishonest,” “corrupt,” “low life reporters,” “bad people,” “human scum” and “some of the worst human beings you’ll ever meet.”
In response to Trump’s steady stream of verbal attacks, members of the press were regularly booed at Trump rallies, and reporters named in his tweets have been repeatedly harassed online. There also have been credible threats to news organizations, with CNN frequently targeted.
Read the full article at: https://cpj.org/reports/2020/04/trump-media-attacks-credibility-leaks.php