Trump blamed by some media watchers

Associated Press

The case of Republican candidate Greg Gianforte, a Montana congressional candidate accused of body-slamming a reporter, is being blamed by some media watchers on a wave of hostility toward journalists that President Donald Trump helped generate.

“It definitely started before Trump, but he definitely exacerbated it,” said Kelly McBride, a vice president at the Poynter Institute, a media think tank and training center in St. Petersburg, Fla.

For months, Trump, first as a candidate, now as president, has attacked the media, calling it dishonest, branding it the “enemy of the people” and accusing it of putting out “fake news.”

During the White House campaign, reporters at Trump rallies were often confined to a penned-in area, vilified by the candidate and subjected to such insults and threats from his supporters that some members of the media feared for their safety.

At one rally, a man was photographed in a shirt that read, “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required.”

“Everybody needs to take a step back and realize the press has a role to play. We have a right to do our jobs,” said Bernie Lunzer, a former journalist and the president of the NewsGuild, a union representing some 25,000 journalists in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico.