Tag: Trump attack on freedom of the press

Trump escalates fight against press with libel lawsuits

The Hill logoThe Trump campaign’s libel lawsuits against The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN mark a dramatic escalation in the president’s long fight with the media.

Legal experts have said the suits are dead on arrival, failing to meet the high bar to prove defamation of a public figure, but they fear an environment in which powerful elected officials try to use the courts to intimidate the press.

“The concern here is not that one of these suits would win on the merits — it’s the chilling effect that it has on public discussion of political affairs,” Jonathan Peters, the Columbia Journalism Review’s press freedom correspondent and a University of Georgia media law professor, told The Hill.  Continue reading.

Trump Campaign Files Stunt Lawsuits Against Times, Post

Donald Trump’s campaign announced on Tuesday that it filed a libel lawsuit against the Washington Post, accusing the newspaper publishing “false and defamatory statements” intended to “maliciously interfere with and damage” Trump’s reelection.

The lawsuit challenges two separate pieces from 2019 by Washington Postopinion writers Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman

Sargent’s piece quotes from special counsel Robert Mueller’s report about how the Trump campaign welcomed Russia’s interference in the 2016 election — a factual statement. Continue reading.

Trump bashes media after lackluster August jobs report

The Hill logoPresident Trump lashed out Friday at the news media after the release of an underwhelming August jobs report, accusing journalists of stoking anxiety about a potential recession.

“The Economy is great. The only thing adding to ‘uncertainty’ is the Fake News!” Trump tweeted Friday, hours after the Bureau of Labor Statistics released an August jobs report that fell below expectations.

The U.S. economy added 130,000 jobs in August, 25,000 of which were hires for short-term positions to conduct the 2020 U.S. census. While the unemployment rate stayed steady at 3.7 percent, the August jobs gains were well below economists’ estimates of 145,000 to 160,000 new hires.

The August jobs report was the latest sign that the growth of the U.S. economy is beginning to slow after more than a decade of consistent expansion. Economists say that while the country is adding enough jobs to stave off a recession for now, a broader global slowdown poses severe risks for the U.S.

View the complete September 6 article by Sylvan Lane on The Hill website here.

Trump preps order forcing social media sites to give conservatives special rights as sons attack Twitter

AlterNet logoOne Trump Son Starts Following Alt-Right Social Media Site Popular With Extremists

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are attacking the social media site their father says helped put him in the White House, as President Donald Trump appears to be following through on a promise to go after social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. That promise is based on false and debunked claims that “Big Tech,” from Google to social media sites, are biased against conservatives.

Politico reports the Trump White House is circulating several different drafts of what would become an executive order that would somehow regulate free speech on social media platforms, which are publicly-traded private companies. Trump last month promised conservatives he would explore “all regulatory and legislative solutions” to try to control social media companies and other Silicon Valley “Big Tech” corporations, like Google.

“If the internet is going to be presented as this egalitarian platform and most of Twitter is liberal cesspools of venom, then at least the president wants some fairness in the system,” a White House official told Politico.

\View the complete August 8 article by David Badash from the New Civil Rights Movement on the AlertNet website here.

Donald Trump Jr. goes on Fox to talk media objectivity — and to compare a Democrat to a mass shooter

Washington Post logoPerhaps there is some cosmic almanac in which the universe’s greatest ironies are recorded, a heavy tome that the angels can skim, marveling at man’s ability to demonstrate his own insincerity. If there is, the celestial scribes have had a busy morning thanks to Donald Trump Jr.’s appearance on Fox News in which he lambasted the New York Times for kowtowing to its audience.

The subject at hand was the newspaper’s decision to change its planned front-page headline summarizing President Trump’s speech on Monday following twin mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio. The paper originally ran with a headline of “Trump urges unity vs. racism,” a summary of Trump’s comments that manages to misrepresent both Trump’s vision of unity and his relationship with racism. It’s technically true, in the way that saying Babe Ruth hasn’t hit any home runs this century is true. It’s just … not the entire story.

The paper’s executive editor explained that the social-media outcry that the headline spurred caused the Times’s senior leadership to take a closer look at and, later, to change it. Fox, in its presentation of the scenario, suggested that the paper was actually responding to criticism from prominent Democrats.

View the complete August 7 article by Philip Bump on The Washington Post website here.

Trump says Washington Post should apologize to McConnell over ‘Russian asset’ column

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Tuesday said The Washington Post should apologize to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) after it published an opinion piece titled “Mitch McConnell is a Russian asset” that criticized the senator’s opposition to election security legislation.

“I think The Washington Post is a Russian asset by comparison,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House for a trip to Virginia.

“Mitch McConnell loves our country. He’s done a great job,” Trump added, noting that he did not read the piece. “If they actually said that, that Mitch McConnell is an asset of Russia, they ought to be ashamed of themselves, and they ought to apologize.”

View the complete July 30 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Trump lashes out at Washington Post over reporting: ‘Presidential Harassment!’

The Hill logoPresident Donald Trump on Sunday lashed out The Washington Post over its reporting on his attacks against a group of minority congresswomen, calling it an example of “Presidential Harassment.”

“The Washington Post Story, about my speech in North Carolina and tweet, with its phony sources who do not exist, is Fake News,” Trump tweeted, referring to a rally in North Carolina his campaign held last week. “The only thing people were talking about is the record setting crowd and the tremendous enthusiasm, far greater than the Democrats. You’ll see in 2020!”

“Presidential Harassment!” Trump added in a separate tweet, before tweeting “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” in a subsequent one.

View the complete July 21 article by Justin Wise on The Hill website here.

Trump rails against political elites on Washington media’s big night

President Trump railed against the political and social elites at a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Saturday night as members of the press gathered in Washington for the White House correspondents’ dinner.

Trump cast the news media, Democrats and Washington insiders as out of touch with ordinary Americans and made the case that his administration’s policies have benefited working-class voters in the Midwest states that will be pivotal in determining the outcome of the 2020 election.

“There’s no place I’d rather be than right here in America’s heartland,” Trump said in a 90-minute speech at a packed arena in Green Bay. “And there’s no one I’d rather be with than you, the hardworking patriots who make our country run so well.”

View the complete April 27 article by Jonathan Easley on The Hill website here.

Trump declares New York Times ‘enemy of the people’

President Trump on Wednesday labeled The New York Times “a true enemy of the people” one day after an extensive report detailing the ways in which he has sought to influence the investigations into his presidency and allies.

“The New York Times reporting is false,” Trump tweeted. “They are a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!”

The president’s tweet did not refute any specific reporting from the Times, but marked yet another escalation in his sustained attacks on his hometown paper and the media as a whole.

White House Correspondents’ Association condemns attack on journalist at Trump rally

A man is restrained after shoving a BBC cameraman during a rally for President Trump in El Paso. Credit: Eric Gay, AP Photo

The White House Correspondents’ Association called on President Donald Trump on Tuesday to make it clear to his supporters that violence against journalists is unacceptable, following an attack on a BBC cameraman at the president’s rally the previous evening.

Olivier Knox, the president of the association, said in a statement that the organization “condemns the physical attack on our colleague at the president’s rally in El Paso, Texas.”

“We are relieved that, this time, no one was seriously hurt,” he said. “The president of the United States should make absolutely clear to his supporters that violence against reporters is unacceptable.”

View the complete February 12 article by Rebecca Morin on the Politico website here.