Public needs to stand with press

By Bill Lueders

Tribune News Service

President Donald J. Trump, building on such previous slurs such as “slime,” “absolute scum,” and “lying, disgusting people,” has proclaimed the media “the enemy of the American people.” Reporters he doesn’t like are accused of being “fake news” and are denied access.

Trump’s attacks are not mere expressions of resentment; they put our press traditions – in fact, our democracy – in danger. As practitioners of journalism and citizens who rely on it, we have to respond.

First, the press must get tougher, especially when it comes to identifying misstatements. This is already happening, with the boom of fact-checking outlets that evaluate the pronouncements of politicians. We are also seeing journalists go great lengths to call out lies and avoid being the conduit of false information.

“Today, the president had another Twitter tantrum,” declared Scott Pelley on “CBS Evening News” earlier the month, the day before Trump accused his predecessor of wiretapping his phones, sans evidence. Pelley earlier opened one broadcast with the reflection, “It has been a busy day for presidential statements divorced from reality.”

Second, members of the media must stand up for each other. This, too, is happening. After Trump’s first solo press conference as president, when he lashed out at the reporters in the room, Fox News host Shepard Smith delivered a stunning on-air rebuke:

“It’s crazy what we’re watching every day. It’s absolutely crazy. He keeps repeating ridiculous throwaway lines that are not true at all and sort of avoiding this issue of Russia as if we’re some kind of fools for asking the question,” Smith said. “Really? We’re fools for asking the questions? No sir, we are not fools for asking the questions. And we demand to know the answer to this question.”

Angry reaction

Some Trump supporters, predictably, demanded that Smith be fired. But his comments played well with other members of the public.

Which brings me to point three: The public needs to stand with the press. The journalists I know, from my more than 30 years in the profession, work hard and care deeply about their country and communities. They display, by any measure, a much higher commitment to fairness and accuracy than does Donald Trump.

Consider what happened when Time magazine reporter Zeke Miller mentioned in a press pool report that, during his visit to the Oval Office, he had not seen a bust of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that had been there before. Shortly after another reporter put this out, the White House denied it. Two minutes later, Miller emailed a correction to a large list of reporters, followed by more than a dozen tweets acknowledging his error and apologizing for it. But Trump nonetheless seized on this and has continued to cite it as an example of deliberately false reporting. Time editor Nancy Gibbs has defended Miller, saying, “It was no such thing.”

The press is not above criticism. But the job of journalism has never been more important, and the press needs the support of the American people to withstand Trump’s attacks.

Let’s stand together and push back.

Bill Lueders is managing editor of The Progressive magazine. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.