I’m glad that the Trump administration barred a CNN reporter from a Rose Garden event last week after she’d asked the president some tough questions. The resounding media condemnation was a needed moment of press unity. From Fox News to MSNBC, everyone could agree that the White House had gone too far. It was a reminder that reporters are in this together and that they serve the people, not the whims of the president.
The Trump train continues on its dangerous track, using propaganda against America’s free press. CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins was serving as the official pool reporter for the White House press corps during an Oval Office photo-op. She asked about Russian President Vladimir Putin and Michael Cohen, two men who were high in the news cycle that day and surely high on President Trump’s mind. She did her job.
The White House retaliated. While CNN could send the same camera crew to the afternoon event, Collins was blackballed.
The immediate media uproar was deafening. Even Trump’s usual cheerleaders at Fox News wrote, “We stand in strong solidarity with CNN for the right to full access for our journalists as part of a free and unfettered press.”
Administration officials, as they so often do in response to their own blunders, backtracked. “To be clear, we support a free press and ask that everyone be respectful of the presidency and guests at the White House,” said spokeswoman Sarah Sanders.
I don’t blame Americans for turning off their televisions and closing their browser tabs in disgust with the Trump administration. I don’t blame them for weakening under the constant barrage of press criticism, some of it even warranted. But we need the press more than ever right now.
Journalists must ask uncomfortable questions of office holders. If reporters do not scrutinize our representatives, our leaders would run amok. Those in power need reminders that they are servants of the people, not sovereigns holding absolute power.
In the past few years, politicians have become masterful at dodging journalists. Yet, members of Congress and others who regularly appear on the ballot know they cannot avoid the press forever. They must make their case for election by engaging with both the people and the press.
Journalists are on the front lines defending freedom. Americans need accurate information to make informed decisions about the direction of the country.
Be careful, though; do not believe every journalist you read or hear. There are journalists, and there are ‘journalists,’ the latter pretenders who merely spout partisan dreck. Discerning the reliable ones is less difficult than people make it out to be. The mainstream news sources became mainstream because they have standards and ethics. If someone simply has a blog, a podcast, or a Russian-funded pop-up ‘news’ site, proceed with caution.
The mainstream media, for all the divisions that might exist within it, understands its importance. Indeed, sometimes journalists are too self-important, but when they come together in opposition to an administration move that was so outrageous, Americans need to pay attention.
Trump recently doubled down again against the American press at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention. “Just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” he said. In response, the crowd taunted and jeered the journalists at the event. It was the sound of our civil society slowly unraveling with the prevailing political winds.
The president fuels this assault on the free press that is a cornerstone of a functioning democracy. He wrote on Twitter, “The FAKE NEWS media (failing New York Times, CNN, NBC News and many more) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people.”
The phrase ‘fake news’ is something we should expect from a two-bit dictatorship somewhere else in the world. If the choice is between a free press or politicians, the American news media must win.
Without the American press, there is no other voice for the people. Democracy cannot thrive under the veil of secrecy and closed-door diplomacy. If our leaders are out of our reach, they cannot be contained. We need a vigilant press pressuring politicians.
Donavan Wilson is a writer based in Washington, D.C.
