News Media Fight Back Against Trump: Celebrate Freedom of the Press
The national news media on this day fought back against attacks by President Donald Trump with a nationwide celebration of freedom of the press.
Over 350 newspapers and other media published editorials in a coordinated defense of freedom of the press against attacks by President Trump. Trump had recently called the news media the “enemy of the people.” Even before the 2016 presidential election, Trump had attacked the media by labeling criticisms of him as “fake news.”
The Atlantic magazine, for example, declared that “The Freedom of the Press is Yours. It is your right as an American to read what you will, to wrtie what you think, and to publish what you believe.”
The U.S. Senate also on this day unanimously passed a resolution declaring that “the press is not the enemy of the people.”
Many commentators believe that Trump’s attacks on the media are a direct threat to the foundations of democracy in America, by promoting distrust in the media and other basic institutions. Some critics see a parallel between Trump’s actions and those of Adolph Hitler, who actively promoted civil disorder and practiced the “big lie,” continuously telling extreme falsehoods.
The landmark cases in the history of freedom of the press in the U.S. include Masses v. Patten (1917), which tried unsuccessfully to end censorship early in World War II; Near v. Minnesota (1931), the first case in which the Supreme Court established First Amendment protection of the press from prior restraints; and New York Times v. Nixon (1971), in which the Supreme Court overturned a Nixon administration injunction against the New York Times for publishing the secret Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War.
Read the Atlantic editorial here.
Read about the Senate Resolution here.
Learn about the history of freedom of the press in the U.S.
Read about the landmark Near v. Minnesota decision: Fred W. Friendly, Minnesota Rag: Corruption, Yellow Journalism, and the Case that Saved Freedom of the Press (2003)