Contact The Editor
Articles By This Author
Over 300 newspapers across the country recently coordinated a major editorial rant against President Trump. Of course these papers have always been against anything Trump, the only thing new here is the fact that they colluded together to do it all on the same day with the same theme. That theme being that Trump is attempting to suppress "freedom of the press." Leading the bogus charge was The Boston Globe.
"Today in the United States we have a president who has created a mantra that members of the media who do not blatantly support the policies of the current US administration are the 'enemy of the people,'" the Globe editorial said.
"This is one of the many lies that have been thrown out by this president, much like an old-time charlatan threw out 'magic' dust or water on a hopeful crowd," it added in a piece entitled "Journalists are not the Enemy."
The New York Times, the far-Left paper of record, ran a seven-paragraph editorial under a giant headline with all capital letters that read "A FREE PRESS NEEDS YOU." "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," the Times wrote.
The real charlatans here are the press themselves by setting up a straw man in order to discredit President Trump. The irony is that they run blatantly hateful editorials against Trump protesting that their rights to run blatantly hateful editorials against Trump are being denied them.
Their contention that Trump does not allow nor believe in a free press is completely untrue. Donald Trump has always made the distinction between "fake news" and honest unbiased reporting. The mainstream media purposely ignores that difference to promote the lie that Trump is against ALL legitimate news reporting.
Let's set the record straight. Trump never condemned the entire press. He never said news organizations that do not support his policies are the enemy of the people. His problem is with FAKE news, which includes reporters, cable news outlets and newspapers who make up stories, distort his words, and literally avoid reporting any of his successes.
Even the anti-Trump Washington Post reported that 96% of all journalists in America are liberal Democrats. They have been that way for decades, but in recent years they have been more overt with their biases. Now they seem not to care about writing and speaking their contempt for conservative Americans in general and with Donald Trump in particular.
They whine about "Freedom of the press," which is nonsense because they HAVE freedom of the press. Nobody has taken it away. But doesn't freedom of the press come with some responsibility to be objective and TO REPORT THE TRUTH to readers? Or does freedom of the press mean you can lie, omit important details, and twist words to advance the news organization's personal agenda and politics? Yes, I suppose freedom of the press allows that a paper can print just about anything it wants, but if it does print lies and spins stories which suppress the truth, then it deserves to be called out as FAKE NEWS.
In fact, the Press should join President Trump in denouncing "fake news." They, above all, should want honest, objective reportage. They should rally against any phony stories and any twisting of facts coming out of major news organizations. But they won't. Instead they double down, and in so doing they engage in exactly what President Trump accuses many of them of, printing fake news.
The disingenuous mainstream news media is twisting words once again in their ongoing effort to discredit President Trump. If they were really concerned about the ethics of journalism in America, if they really wanted to demonstrate the lofty virtuous ideals of the press, then they should join with Trump in demanding the end of fake news.
Fake news is what Nazi Germany, communist regimes like the USSR and so many other totalitarian governments engaged in. It's called propaganda, propaganda based on lies. Millions of people suffered and died because of fake news.
The fact is, President Donald Trump is right. FAKE NEWS is the enemy of the people. What we all should want and demand is honest, truthful, balanced news from the press. The future of America depends on it.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Comment by clicking here.
JWR contributor Greg Crosby, former creative head for Walt Disney publications, has written thousands of comics, hundreds of children's books, dozens of essays, and a letter to his congressman. He's been a JWR contributor since 1999.