The Trump Administration and the Media: Attacks on Press Credibility Endanger US Democracy and Global Press Freedom
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The Trump Administration and the Media: Attacks on press credibility endanger US democracy and global press freedom By Leonard Downie Jr. with research by Stephanie Sugars A special report of the Committee to Protect Journalists The Trump Administration and the Media: Attacks on press credibility endanger US democracy and global press freedom By Leonard Downie Jr. with research by Stephanie Sugars A special report of the Committee to Protect Journalists The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal. In order to preserve our independence, CPJ does not accept any government grants or support of any kind; our work is funded entirely by contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations. CHAIR VICE CHAIR HONORARY CHAIRMAN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Kathleen Carroll Jacob Weisberg Terry Anderson Joel Simon DIRECTORS Jonathan Klein Norman Pearlstine getty images los angeles times Stephen J. Adler reuters Jane Kramer Lydia Polgreen the new yorker gimlet media Andrew Alexander Mhamed Krichen Ahmed Rashid al-jazeera Amanda Bennett David Remnick Isaac Lee Krishna Bharat the new yorker google Rebecca MacKinnon Maria Teresa Ronderos Diane Brayton Kati Marton Alan Rusbridger new york times company lady margaret hall, oxford Michael Massing Susan Chira Karen Amanda Toulon Geraldine Fabrikant Metz the marshall project bloomberg news the new york times Sheila Coronel Darren Walker columbia university Matt Murray ford foundation school of journalism the wall street journal and dow jones newswires Roger Widmann Anne Garrels Victor Navasky Jon Williams Cheryl Gould the nation rté Lester Holt Clarence Page Matthew Winkler nbc chicago tribune bloomberg news SENIOR ADVISERS David Marash Sandra Mims Rowe Christiane Amanpour Charles L. Overby Paul E. Steiger cnn international freedom forum propublica Tom Brokaw Dan Rather Brian Williams nbc news axs tv msnbc James C. Goodale Gene Roberts debevoise & plimpton philip merrill college of journalism, university of Steven L. Isenberg maryland © 2020 Committee to Protect Journalists, New York. All rights reserved. Design: John Emerson. THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION AND THE MEDIA: ATTACKS ON PRESS CREDIBILITY ENDANGER US DEMOCRACY AND GLOBAL PRESS FREEDOM About this report 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. A special report of the Committee to Protect Journalists. This report was authored by Leonard Downie Jr., the Weil Family Professor of Journalism at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Downie is the former executive editor of The Washington Post and the author of seven books, including a forthcoming memoir, “All About the Story.” He wrote the 2013 CPJ special report, “The Obama Administration and the Press.” Stephanie Sugars, a reporter for the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, researched this report. She is a graduate of NYU’s Global and Joint Program Studies program in journalism and international relations, and has previously worked at the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Post-Conflict Research Center. Her freelance reporting has been published by Al-Jazeera, Open Democracy, Muftah, Civic Ideas, and Balkan Diskurs. Cover photo: President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, on February 7, 2020, before boarding Marine One for Andrews Air Force Base. (AP/Patrick Semansky) 3 THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION AND THE MEDIA: ATTACKS ON PRESS CREDIBILITY ENDANGER US DEMOCRACY AND GLOBAL PRESS FREEDOM CONTENTS Introduction 7 Presidents and the press 9 Attacks on press credibility 10 Access to government information 13 Trump and the truth 17 Trump, the law, and the press 19 Targeting news media owners 21 War on leaks 23 Harassment at U.S. borders 29 Impact outside the U.S. 30 News media response 31 Recommendations 35 THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION AND THE MEDIA: ATTACKS ON PRESS CREDIBILITY ENDANGER US DEMOCRACY AND GLOBAL PRESS FREEDOM hen President Donald J. Trump initially minimized we can be trusted.” the danger of the COVID-19 virus in the first two In response to Trump’s steady stream of verbal attacks, Wmonths of 2020, he attacked news media reporting about members of the press were regularly booed at Trump the growing threat and his administration’s slow response. rallies, and reporters named in his tweets have been re- “Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are peatedly harassed online. There also have been credible doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look threats to news organizations, with CNN frequently tar- as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possi- geted. ble,” the president tweeted on February 26, implying that The president’s press secretaries, other White House MSNBC is allied with the Democratic Party. aides and administration officials, along with Trump’s al- On March 8, after more press reports about shortcom- lies in Congress also repeatedly attacked the press, often ings in the administration’s response, Trump tweeted, parroting the president’s language. Along with Trump’s “The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to thousands of documented false statements and his pro- make us look bad. Sad!” The next day, after the Dow Jones motion of discredited conspiracy theories, the adminis- Index lost 2,014 points, or 7.79 percent, of its value, the tration’s attacks on the credibility of the news media have president also blamed it on “fake news.” In a March 18 dangerously undermined truth and consensus in a deeply tweet, Trump insisted, “I always treated the Chinese Vi- divided country. rus very seriously” and “the Fake News new narrative is “We now have some of the best news organizations that disgraceful & false.” At contentious White House COV- the world has known,” said Paul Steiger, former editor of ID-19 press briefings on March 19 and 20, he again angrily The Wall Street Journal, founder of the ProPublica non- attacked the news media, saying that “the press is very dis- profit news organization, and former chair of Commit- honest” in its reporting on his handling of the crisis and tee to Protect Journalists’ board of directors. “But Trump that journalists “truly do hurt our country.” has created a climate in which the best news, most fact- It was all typical of the Trump presidency’s unprec- checked news is not being believed by many people.” edented hostility toward the press. Trump has habitually The Trump administration has threatened the work attacked the news media in rallies, responses to report- of the American press in other ways. The Justice Depart- ers’ questions, and many hundreds of tweets. He has re- ment has stepped up investigations and prosecutions of peatedly called the press “fake news,” “the enemy of the journalists’ sources of classified government information, people,” “dishonest,” “corrupt,” “low life reporters,” “bad while Trump and his attorneys general have refused to people,” “human scum” and “some of the worst human be- rule out prosecuting reporters themselves. The Customs ings you’ll ever meet.” As Trump told Leslie Stahl of CBS and Border Protection (CBP) agency has questioned jour- News shortly after he was elected president in 2016, he nalists at border posts, searched their electronic devices, has been trying to destroy the credibility of the news me- and monitored their movements in a secret database. dia’s reporting about him. Trump himself has called for boycotts of news orga- “I believe that President Trump is engaged in the most nizations and changes in libel law to punish the press. direct sustained assault on freedom of the press in our His re-election campaign sued The New York Times, The history,” Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said at a Society Washington Post, and CNN for libel for opinions expressed of Professional Journalists press freedom event in Wash- by their columnists and contributors. He tried unsuccess- ington on December 11, 2019. “He has done everything fully to take away White House press credentials from he can to undercut the media, to try and delegitimize us, journalists and news organizations whose questions and and I think his purpose is clear: to raise doubts, when we stories he did not like. He encouraged federal government report critically about him and his administration, that interference in the businesses of the owners of CNN, the 7 Trump speaks during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House on March 25, 2020, in Washington. Trump called journalists “very dishonest” for their reporting on the health crisis. (AFP/Mandel Ngan) traditional broadcast networks, and The Washington Post. on the validity of the enterprise itself,” Frank Sesno, a for- As threatening as all of that has been for the news me- mer CNN cable news anchor who directs George Wash- dia, Trump’s attacks have had the most success in eroding ington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, the credibility of the American press among his many mil- said in an interview for this report. “It is an Orwellian bar- lions of supporters. A major Pew Research Center study rage of dehumanizing language about the purpose of the in late 2019 showed that a plurality of Republicans con- job, people who do the job and the organizations that em- sistently distrusted most of the news media (except for ploy them. It is a continuing assault on a free press – and Trump-supporting media like Fox News), while pluralities on the public’s right to know and the public’s understand- of Democrats tended to trust them.