President Donald Trump’s disdain for fact-based journalism and the First Amendment that makes it possible are inextricable.
Trump’s fear and loathing for news reports that come from diligent reporters who base their coverage on facts, and fact-checking, is well documented by the legitimate press and Trump’s own social media posts.
Unable, so far, to successfully upend or suspend the First Amendment, Trump is now trying to stymie free press by illegally cutting federal funds approved by Congress to public media in his latest attempt to stop reporters from exposing his extensive and relentless propaganda campaigns.
Earlier in May, Trump ordered the National Corporation for Public Broadcasting to shut down funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System.
This week, Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and other NPR-related radio news entities sued Trump for his caustic and clearly illegal schemes.
The courts should have no doubt that Trump is retaliating against NPR and stations like Colorado Public Radio because he’s repeatedly made those points himself.
“It is not always obvious when the government has acted with a retaliatory purpose in violation of the First Amendment. But this wolf comes as a wolf,” lawyers for CPR and other Colorado public radio stations state in the lawsuit filed in Federal District Court in Denver Tuesday. “The Order targets NPR and PBS expressly because, in the President’s view, their news and other content is not ‘fair, accurate, or unbiased.’”
Trump speaks for himself, as well, on the allegation.
Trump called NPR a “LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE” on a social media post last year while campaigning. “NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A TOTAL SCAM!”
Trump’s problem with the legitimate media is two-fold. First, he incessantly makes inaccurate, unfounded, misleading statements to the media. Or, often, he outright lies. Then he becomes infuriated when the legitimate media holds him accountable for his rhetoric by including facts, context and corrections.
Few national news sources have avoided Trump’s wrath when they report the facts about what he says or does, rather than simply repeat his prose, unchallenged and uncorrected.
Even Fox News has been the target of Trump’s media rage on the rare occasion reporters there point out something so wrong that Trump says that reporters would come off as daft without providing correction.
Both NPR and CPR provide not just important and thorough news coverage that are unavailable anywhere else — both nationally and locally — but listeners and readers can easily see how accurate, fact-driven and credible their work is because the information, data and interviews they base it all on are, for the most part, available to anyone.
Despite the cliché, the issue Trump has with legitimate “mainstream” media is that “the facts speak for themselves.” Real reporters dig hard to uncover the facts of a story. Propaganda sources do not.
Rather than just roll over for Trump’s recent tantrum about NPR and PBS, stations like those in Colorado are asking the courts to decide whether Trump is within the power of the presidency to “de-fund” public media by fiat because of news coverage he finds inconvenient, troublesome or unflattering.
In a statement, the radio stations make clear that they not only choose to fact-check Trump’s rhetoric and protect themselves from his illegal maneuvers, as journalists, they’re compelled to do the right thing.
“This is not about politics — it is about principle,” radio station officials said in a joint statement. “When the government tries to limit press freedom or control the flow of information, we have not only the right, but the obligation, to speak out and defend our rights that make independent journalism possible.”
Everyone has that same right and obligation.
Trump, like local news subjects, has every right to challenge media accounts of the news.
He, and most of his current and past administrations, often made clear their dislike of the legitimate media reports of what they say or do, but they have been unwilling or unable to provide evidence supporting their claims or facts to substantiate seemingly endless assertions. “They say,” a regular Trump source for his bombast and verbosity, are not acceptable cites for most journalists. The throw-away lines of “fake news” and “alternative facts” should be discarded by everyone — unless Trump and similar critics of journalism can provide verifiable details that stand in opposition.
Beyond Trump’s anti-First Amendment scheme, he overlooks that NPR and associated stations and programs provide a wide range of programs that are entertaining, illuminating and, in the case of Colorado, cover rural areas of the state that have no other source of local news.
Trump, like every politician, has every right to promote his version of reality, no matter how off-base it is. But he does not have the right to prevent the media from pointing out when he’s wrong, or when he’s right.
Dave defending his fellow Squealers again–the ones who said that the First Amendment was the “number one challenge” in American journalism, called the Constitution a “racist,” “undemocratic” document when they couldn’t go around it to gain more power, and complain about “President Musk” while openly supporting shadow governments that reflect the same anti-democratic European systems that we killed Brits and German mercs to get away from.
Once again, the left demonstrates that it despises the taste of its own “liberating tolerance.”
The American people are wising up.
We don’t need the federal government spoon-feeding us news that’s been spun in either direction– no more than we need 10,000 government-paid meteorologists (200 per state) to forecast the weather.
The people no longer trust the news media. People may blame Trump to deflect criticism at the end of the day, he’s 1000% more truthful than CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, the NY Times, the WashPost, NPR, PBS or pretty much any political opponent on the left who tried to sell us on voting for Biden when he clearly was NOT physically or mentally fit for the job.
Take NPR and PBS to the budgetary guillotine and let fair competition pick who we trust to deliver our news.
And I say all this as someone who didn’t vote for Trump.
Probably a good time to remind the fantasists here that The Washington Post documented over 30,000 lies told by Trump the last time around. They eventually gave up trying to keep up with Trump’s mendacity, which has been a practice of Trump’s for his whole life.
Now we are living through not only lies, but repeated actions taken against citizens for imaginary “crimes”. And his sycophants and devotees still get fooled all the time. Meanwhile, Trump openly runs scams and for-profit rackets out of the White House.
And fools like the above fans refuse to see the obscenity and sheer corruption.
Probably a good time to remind Jeffy-poo that WaPo and the rest of the mainstream media have no credibility after 4-plus years of playing Squealer for the DNC, while his NGO buddies scam American taxpayers out of millions.
I’m old enough to have seen an earlier version of Trump’s war on the media. Nixon was openly hostile to the press. The secret tapes revealed the depth of his hatred. The differences are the support that Fox propaganda network provides to Trump, the complacency of the remnants of the GOP, and Trump’s usage of social media. The salacious nature of the conspiracy bs probably also contributes to the growth in “barstool” political punditry. Some MAGAts are starting to ask why the unmasking and retribution of Trump’s biggest mirage – the so-called “Deep State” – is not taking place. Trump repeats over and over that it is very easy to point to these Deep State actors, but never quite gets to the revelation or retribution stage. Essentially, he continues to whet MAGAts appetite for revenge but doesn’t possess the goods, and subsequently, his supporters are getting restless!
Kane, your use of “big” words does not relate in any manner to your lack of intellect.
No one in their right mind can understand what you mean by, “The salacious nature of the conspiracy bs probably also contributes to the growth in “barstool” political punditry.” I can’t even believe that you understand that sentence even in context.
I’ll give you one thing though. Nixon was not a nice man, nor politician. But if the main issue you got out of the Watergate Tapes was that he hated the media, you need some better understanding. That’s way down the list of history’s feelings about the tapes, in fact, inconsequential.