Hundreds of U.S. newspapers devoted print space on Thursday to a co-ordinated defence of media freedom and a rebuke of President Donald Trump for saying some media organizations are enemies of the American people.
The Boston Globe and the New York Times took part in the push along with more than 350 other newspapers of all sizes, including some in states that Trump won during the 2016 presidential election. At least one Canadian newspaper, the Toronto Star, also participated.
The Globe said it co-ordinated publication among the newspapers and carried details of it on a database on its website.
The greatness of America is dependent on the role of a free press to speak the truth to the powerful.– Boston Globe editorial
Each paper ran an editorial, which is usually an unsigned article that reflects the opinion of an editorial board on a particular subject, and is separate from the news and other sections in a paper.
The Globe’s editorial accused Trump of carrying out a “sustained assault on the free press.”
“The greatness of America is dependent on the role of a free press to speak the truth to the powerful,” it said. “To label the press ‘the enemy of the people’ is as un-American as it is dangerous to the civic compact we have shared for more than two centuries.”
Recurrent attacks on media
Trump has frequently criticized journalists and described news reports that contradict his opinion or policy positions as “fake news.”
In February 2017, for example, he tweeted:
The FAKE NEWS media (failing <a href=”https://twitter.com/nytimes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@nytimes</a>, <a href=”https://twitter.com/NBCNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@NBCNews</a>, <a href=”https://twitter.com/ABC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@ABC</a>, <a href=”https://twitter.com/CBS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@CBS</a>, <a href=”https://twitter.com/CNN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@CNN</a>) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!
—@realDonaldTrump
On Thursday morning, Trump again took to Twitter to criticize the news media.
THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA IS THE OPPOSITION PARTY. It is very bad for our Great Country….BUT WE ARE WINNING!
—@realDonaldTrump
His comments reflect a view held by many conservatives that most newspapers and other news outlets distort, make up or omit facts because of a bias against them.
The Times editorial said it is right to criticize the media for underplaying or overplaying stories or for getting something wrong in a story.
“News reporters and editors are human, and make mistakes. Correcting them is core to our job,” it said. “But insisting that truths you don’t like are ‘fake news’ is dangerous to the lifeblood of democracy. And calling journalists the ‘enemy of the people’ is dangerous, period.”
Thursday’s co-ordinated editorials were criticized by some in the media, including a CBS News commentary that described them as a “self-defeating act of journalistic groupthink.”
“Seriously, who’s going to be persuaded by this effort, or be impressed that a few hundred newspapers can hum the same tune? Who’s even going to notice?” the commentary asked.
In January, U.S. Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona, said Trump had embraced the despotic language of former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
With files from CBC News and The Associated Press