President Trump was awarded the “Overall Achievement in Undermining Global Press Freedom” this week by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
It’s a foolish designation on its face.
It’s all the more foolish considering the non-profit group announced the award not long before Trump took the unprecedented step of opening the Jan. 9 immigration meeting between Republican and Democratic leadership to the press.
“Trump … has consistently undermined domestic news outlets and declined to publicly raise freedom of the press with repressive leaders such as Xi, Erdogan, and Sisi. Authorities in China, Syria, and Russia have adopted Trump’s ‘fake news’ epithet, and Erdogan has applauded at least one of his verbal attacks on journalists,” CJP said of Trump’s inclusion on its list of “press oppressors.”
Though the pro-journalism group regularly tracks press freedoms worldwide, its “oppressor” awards, which are a direct response to Trump’s announcement last week that he would host a bootleg Razzies for news media, are something of a first.
“Under Trump’s administration, the Department of Justice has failed to commit to guidelines intended to protect journalists’ sources, and the State Department has proposed to cut funding for international organizations that help buttress international norms in support of free expression,” read CPJ’s entry for Trump.
It concluded, “As Trump and other Western powers fail to pressure the world’s most repressive leaders into improving the climate for press freedom, the number of journalists in prison globally is at a record high.”
To be clear: CPJ did not say Trump was the “worst press oppressor” in a field that included Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Rather, the group argued Trump’s anti-media rhetoric is empowering foreign dictators to oppress journalists.
It’s true the U.S. wields an enormous amount of influence when it comes to setting the tone for press freedoms around the world. It’s also true that Trump enjoys his anti-media rants.
But it seems a bit lopsided that the all-talk Trump would be placed on a list of “press oppressors” while the previous president, whose Justice Department was uniquely anti-media, earned no similar honorific.
Noting this discrepancy isn’t “whataboutism.” One must have two similar examples before one can cry, “Hypocrisy!” And that’s precisely the point: Trump and Obama’s treatment of the press are very dissimilar. Trump has rhetoric whereas the Obama administration took specific and oppressive actions against newsrooms. Yet, Trump is condemned with the likes of Putin, while Obama is not.
CPJ is seemingly asking us to accept the notion that Trump’s rhetoric is more harmful than, say, when federal investigators spied on the New York Times’ James Risen. Remember that? Feds were trying to determine whether Risen was the recipient of leaked CIA information. Investigators went through Risen’s credit reports and his personal bank records, and they obtained information about his phone calls and travel, according to a motion filed in a federal court.
The Obama administration even renewed the subpoena that was brought against Risen originally in 2008. Risen was informed two years ago that he would not have to testify, which brought an end to a seven-year fight over whether he would be forced to identify one of his sources.
Or remember when the Associated Press revealed in May 2013 that the Justice Department had secretly collected two months’ worth of personal and work-related phone calls made by AP reporters and editors? The Justice Department secretly obtained records on incoming and outgoing calls made by specific AP journalists, as well as general news staff, the news group reported. Federal investigators even collected data on calls made by AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery.
Don’t forget the Obama Justice Department labeled Fox News reporter James Rosen a “criminal co-conspirator” that same year under the Espionage Act of 1917 in relation to a case involving possibly leaked classified information. Federal investigators tried to gain access to Rosen’s personal emails and phone records.
The Justice Department went as far as to monitor the reporter’s visits to the State Department, including tracing his phone calls and attempting to review his personal emails. Rosen was labeled a “flight risk.”
To be fair, each of these examples led to strong rebukes from CPJ.
“Under the Obama administration we wrote a highly critical report assessing his promise to make his presidency the most transparent in history when in fact he used the Espionage Act more than all other administrations combined to crackdown on leaks, and presided over a mass surveillance program that had serious implications for journalists’ ability to report in the digital age,” the group said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
In fact, it was the Obama administration’s many anti-media infractions that prompted CPJ to publish a comprehensive investigation in 2013 – the first of its kind in 19 years – of press freedoms in the U.S.
“CPJ also criticized the jailing of journalist Judith Miller, who refused to reveal her confidential sources, under the Bush administration. Our deep concern about threats to press freedom in the U.S. has always included a significant focus on the implications U.S. actions and rhetoric has abroad,” the group’s statement said.
It added in reference to the “oppressors” award that its criticism of Trump’s rhetoric is “no different” than its criticisms of past presidents.
“Since the president made his announcement about the ‘fake news’ awards on Twitter, we chose the same platform and theme to respond. These tongue-in-cheek awards were a way to inject our concerns, based on daily reporting of threats and harassment of journalists around the world including in the U.S., into the coverage of the president’s announcement,” CPJ told the Examiner.
They added, “As a non-governmental, non-partisan organization, our point was to emphasize how the president undermines U.S. global influence, making it easier for autocratic leaders to justify their own media repression. Trump is not the most repressive leader, simply the most influential globally.”
The bit about Trump’s influence is true, and the point is well taken. But the problem remains: It’s absurd to award Trump a “press oppressor” award when no similar title was given to a commander in chief whose oppression of journalists went far beyond rhetoric.
For the CPJ, we ask which is worse: Engaging in anti-media rhetoric that could embolden foreign dictators, or showing them how it’s done?
