Last week, Reporters Without Borders issued its yearly World Press Freedom Index, which ranks the nations of the world according to their commitment to the foundational freedom of the press. Accompanied by a blaring, five-alarm-fire headline – “Hatred of journalism threatens democracies” – the yearly report decries “growing animosity towards journalists” and a “climate of hatred,” most notably within the United States, which ranked 45th in their assessment.
The press has been calling President Trump a “direct threat to the free and independent media” for months. This Reporters Without Borders report is another feather in the cap of those who argue that that harsh public criticism of the media is tantamount to an outright attack on its very freedom.
But is it really? Even if Reporters Without Borders are right to criticize dystopias like North Korea and Somalia for suppression of journalism, the argument that the mere calling out of the media’s biases and shortcomings in America builds a “climate of hate” is pearl-clutching nonsense.
It is perfectly reasonable to point out the fact that mainstream outlets far too frequently favor preferred narratives over hard facts, and routinely misreport major stories as a result of either liberal groupthink, inherent political bias, or abject incompetence. Media outlets should be called on the carpet for those kinds of egregious disservices to American audiences. It’s intellectually lazy to argue that doing so amounts to an attack on the free press itself.
Bias, misinformation, shoddy reporting and thinly veiled on-air editorializing aren’t bogeymen that conservatives make up. They’re daily occurrences, well documented problems that continue to plague the media. Journalists themselves identify pressure to “pander to audiences” and a “need to entertain or sensationalize” as two of the top three issues with their industry today, and that’s reflected in their work.
In 2017 alone, the press got dozens of stories wrong. Reporters spent the first few weeks of 2018 obsessing over a book they knew was full of lies and misinformation. Just a few weeks ago, court documents made it clear that the press butchered the reporting on the motive behind the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting.
CNN’s coverage of major political stories is reliably unfair, dishonest or inaccurate, but that hasn’t stopped the network from moving Chris Cuomo – a combative, ideological gun-control enthusiast committed to the demonstrably false assertion that “no one” is trying to repeal the Second Amendment – to prime time. The media consistently misreport mass shootings, and their supposedly objective “facts-first” coverage of President Trump has been 91 percent negative in tone.
To point out these real, measurable biases and well-documented failures is not tantamount to threatening the freedom of the press. Rather, it is to hold to a fair and appropriately high standard the people who wish to maintain a position of fact-digging authority in our country. Good journalism is good for democracy and bad journalism is bad for democracy; the freedom of the press does not entitle the press to freedom from criticism or accountability, nor should it. When the press misleads, misreports or whiffs on basic facts, holding them to account for their failures is both warranted and appropriate.
The media at large would do this country and their own credibility a great service to press pause on the mad dash to glorify and martyr themselves and actually listen to their critics for once rather than dismiss them as direct threats to democracy. That small degree of humility and respect, more than anything else, might lead to a mending of the frayed ties between the media and the audiences they aim to serve.
Dylan Gallimore is content manager at Republican consulting firm Jamestown Associates.
