Donald Trump blasts the news media that's helped him to dominate GOP field
The biggest critic of news media coverage of the Republican presidential campaign is the biggest beneficiary of news media coverage of the Republican presidential campaign.
“I do hate them,’’ Donald Trump has said of political journalists. “Some of them are such lying, disgusting people. … (They’re) among the most dishonest groups of people I’ve ever met.’’ In October, he said 50% of reporters were “terrible.’’ He’s since upped that to “70 to 75%.’’
The relationship can get physical. On Tuesday, Breitbart website reporter Michelle Fields said her arm was yanked by campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as she was trying to ask Trump a question. The Trump campaign denied the accusation. But the Daily Beast reported that Lewandowski acknowledged to a Breitbart editor that he grabbed Fields, whom he said he did not recognize as reporter for the site, which is friendly to Trump.
The previous week, in Virginia, a Time photographer was placed in a chokehold by a Secret Service agent after he stepped outside a press area to photograph protesters.
Trump campaign tries to discredit reporter who claims she was strong-armed
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Security scuffles with photographer at Trump rally
Trump has closed his rallies to reporters and news organizations he says have been unfair to him. Those he does admit are grouped in pens, to which Trump directs the attention of his raucous crowds with comments like, “What slime!’’
And — to the distress of First Amendment advocates — Trump says he’d make it easier to sue journalists for libel: “If I become president, oh, do they have problems!’’
Every presidential campaign tries to manage press coverage, but the New York developer is breaking new ground. “I’ve never heard of any presidential candidate who talked about weakening First Amendment libel protections,’’ says Victor Pickard, author of America’s Battle for Media Democracy, published last year. ”He’s taken attacking the press to a whole new level. It’s scary to think where this trajectory would take us.’’
Donald Trump's attacks on the news media: A not-so-short history
Trump says he'll 'open up' libel laws if he's elected
Scary, maybe; ironic, certainly. For Trump spends much of his time doing press interviews; is on a first-name basis with many journalists; and (because he makes so much news and generates such high TV ratings) gets far more free media exposure than any candidate. As former Obama adviser David Axelrod tweeted after Trump floated his libel proposal, “Talk about ingratitude!’’
If anyone has a right to complain about news coverage, it would be the likes of Ben Carson, who was repeatedly snubbed by moderators at the GOP debates, or John Kasich, whose promises of competent governance don’t sell papers or goose the Nielsens.
But Larry Schweikart, a conservative political historian who’s writing a book about the campaign, says Trump’s critics are too worked up about his alleged “war on the media.’’ He argues that Trump merely gives voice to popular resentment against powerful, unaccountable institutions — “People figure, ‘If we make a mistake, we have to pay for it. Why don’t they?' "
Trump’s talk about libel law, he says, is another shot over the media’s bow, not a serious proposal: “There’s the good Donald and the bad Donald. It goes back to The Art of the Deal (Trump’s how-to business best-seller.) It’s a negotiation.’’
“It’s like working the refs,’’ agrees Packard. As in sports, the hope is that a complaint now will yield more favorable treatment (or coverage) in the future.
‘Seditious’ journalism
As Schweikart suggests, The Donald v. The Press is merely the latest round in a battle between politicians and journalists that goes back to the republic’s early years, when most publications were frankly partisan or party-owned. Some papers called for the assassination of George Washington. His successor, John Adams, used the Sedition Act of 1798 (which made it a crime to “write, print, utter or publish, or assist in, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government’’) to have editors arrested.
Battle lines hardened in the 20th century with the rise of professional journalism, which promised non-partisan coverage.
• In the 1930s and 1940s, Franklin Roosevelt cracked down on radio commentator Father Charles Coughlin, who opposed U.S. entry into World War II. The administration also fought attempts by newspaper chains to own radio stations in their markets.
• In the ‘50s, Sen. Joe McCarthy targeted journalists and news organizations for supposed (and largely illusory) communist influence. He summoned to a hearing the editor of The New York Post, whom he suggested was a secret Communist merely posing as an anti-Communist.
• In the ‘60s, Vice President Spiro Agnew led the Nixon administration’s campaign against critical journalists and news organs — “nattering nabobs of negativism.’’
Unlike his predecessors, who attacked from the left (FDR) or the right (McCarthy, Agnew), Trump is waging a two-front war. He’s attacking conservative voices — Fox News, the National Review — as well as the relatively liberal New York Times and Washington Post.
Trump also differs in his focus on individual journalists. He attacks them by name – not just TV personalities and famous pundits, but working stiff reporters. He even appeared to mock the physical disability of a reporter who contradicted his claim that thousands of Muslim-Americans cheered the 9/11 attacks.
Trump blasted for mocking reporter with disability
“It’s one thing to criticize the coverage. It’s another to pick on reporters,’’ says Roy Gutterman, director of Syracuse University’s Tully Center for Free Speech. “No reporter worth his salt hasn’t been attacked by a politician, but usually it’s at a press conference in front of 15 people, not in an arena in front of thousands of rabid supporters.’’
Some at Trump rallies pick up on his cues, shouting insults at reporters or asking if they really work for Hillary Clinton. Katy Tur of MSNBC, one Trump target, tweeted this description of a rally in Virginia: “Trump trashes press. Crowd jeers. Guy by press 'pen' looks at us & screams 'you're a bitch!' Other gentleman gives cameras the double bird."
Reporters have reason to be nervous. On Thursday, for instance, a white man appeared to sucker-punch a black protester being escorted out of a rally in North Carolina.
'We might have to kill him,' says man who punched Trump protester
But Schweikart says reporters are fair game for verbal criticism: “They’re filing the damn stories. They’ve gotten away with that cover for too long.’’ Moreover, Trump’s is a useful technique: “If you put a name to it, it takes it out of just ‘the media,’ and personalizes it. He did that with Megyn Kelly,’’ the Fox News anchor with whom Trump sparred during and insulted after the first GOP debate.
Trump’s generalizations about the news media come at a time when, in reality, it’s never been more fractured and diverse. Agnew, in contrast, could describe the network broadcast news establishment as “no more than a dozen anchormen, commentators and executive producers (who) settle upon the 20 minutes of film and commentary that is to reach the public.’’ He also deplored the “concentration of power over public opinion in fewer and fewer hands,’’ like the Times and Post.
Which explains why Trump can ignore the adage, “Never quarrel with anyone who buys ink by the barrel.’’ The metaphor is outdated in the Digital Age; Trump, figuratively speaking, is the one with the ink — media access, for which he pays nothing.
Libel change easier said than done
Even if a President Trump really wanted to make it easier for public figures to win libel suits, it’s unlikely he’d succeed.
• Libel is not controlled by federal statute. It’s a common law tradition modified by the Constitution’s First Amendment and codified by state laws.
• The legal issue was settled 50 years ago by a unanimous Supreme Court in New York Times v. Sullivan. A public figure suing for libel has a higher standard of proof – “actual malice,’’ which means knowing something was false or acting in “reckless disregard’’ of whether it was.
• It’s not a Mom or apple pie issue. Rolling back Times v. Sullivan would primarily benefit celebrities like Trump (“We could win lots of money!’’), not the ordinary folk for whom he claims to speak. They already enjoy an easier burden of proof if they sue for libel.
Analysts are divided on what’s next. Syracuse’s Gutterman says he suspects Trump will drop the libel issue and “move on to some other beef.’’ Pickard, who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, is not so sanguine: “Even if he doesn’t return to it, we should believe he means it.’’
A final irony: Trump himself, who shouts “liar!’’ at his rivals, could benefit from First Amendment libel protections. “You can’t have it both ways,’’ says Gutterman. If the libel laws were changed, he says, Trump “might get sued as much as the news media.’’
