I support President Trump’s attacks on the media. I support his press secretaries calling the media out for publishing “Fake News.” And I celebrate when some of the biggest offenders have to print retractions after Trump and his allies point out their errors. Pushing back against bullies is sometimes the only way to win.
But — and this is a big but — the free media plays an important role in our public discourse. The fact that we have a free media (which means that they are also free to make errors and maybe even purposely mislead) is one of the cornerstones of freedom.
I was troubled when I saw the recent poll numbers that found that 43 percent of the Republicans surveyed supported giving Trump the ability to shut down media outlets engaged in bad behavior. When asked about major media outlets like CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, the numbers are better, but 23 percent of Republicans still said Trump should shut down these “mainstream news outlets.”
This isn’t just a problem for Republicans and Trump. While I haven’t been able to track down polling data, when President Barack Obama was in office, his White House feuded with Fox News to the point where other media outlets felt the need to step in to defend Fox — there were plenty of people that supported Obama at the time. Tensions between the White House and the press aren’t just because of the new 24 hour news cycle. These feuds have been going on for decades.
Tension between presidents and the press is as old as the Republic. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was so incensed by the war reporting of one New York Daily News correspondent he tried to present him with an Iron Cross from Nazi Germany; John F. Kennedy tried to get the New York Times’ David Halberstam pulled out of Vietnam; and former Vice President Spiro Agnew’s assaults on the network press is legendary.
It is hard to support a free media when the media at-large doesn’t agree with you or the people that you support. But that is the time that it should be obvious that the media is what needs to be protected. Because at some point the tides will turn, and the media might be the only voice that we have. Look at North Korea and try to say that a free media isn’t important.
The right thing for Republicans to support would be an even more free media and a president with fewer powers.
That doesn’t mean that the media should get a free pass. Trump is right to push back against obviously fake news — and on the other hand in some ways he has actually expanded the media’s access. Obama was in the right until he tried to exclude Fox News. But pushing back doesn’t mean that supporters on either side should support silencing the media. If anything, the answer is more media. And for goodness’ sake, if you don’t want to read what a specific outlet is writing, just stop reading what that outlet is writing. I won’t stop reading people that I disagree with, but I like freedom and knowledge. I just hope that we can work on teaching the 43 percent of Republicans that same idea.
Fortunately, this was just one poll of 1,003 people and only 363 of them were Republicans. The poll may not be accurate (or even higher portions of Republicans want to shut down media outlets). But if we want to stand up for freedom, the time to start is now – because if that percentage grows then it will be too late.
Charles Sauer (@CharlesSauer) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is president of the Market Institute and previously worked on Capitol Hill, for a governor, and for an academic think tank.
