EDITORIAL: Trump's attacks on press go too far

We use this space under the newspaper’s name -- the “masthead” -- to express the views of the StarNews as an institution. Views in this spot are intentionally unsigned and called “editorials” (in contrast to signed opinion pieces by columnists or letter writers). The Editorial Board is tasked with formulating these views.

We write primarily about local and state issues. For editorials on national and international issues, we often turn to sources that express a view we support but provide more insight and expertise than we likely can offer.

In an editorial we wrote the day after Donald Trump was elected president, we pledged to judge him on his actions and his results. In Trump-related editorials, we have tried to keep the focus on policy rather than on character and temperament. (The voters who put Trump in office were certainly aware of who they were choosing.) We have tried to leave that debate to the mix of columnists we publish and to submissions to the Letters and Buzz columns.

Some issues, however, rise above policy. To the detriment of our nation and the very ideals of the democratic republic we cherish, President Trump has routinely railed against news organizations with a vitriolic stream of attacks. Those attacks have replaced legitimate discussion with diatribe, facts with falsehoods, and reason with rage.

Today, the StarNews joins with newspapers across the country in calling attention to these attacks on the media in general and on newspapers in particular. We hope to highlight the threat to democracy that occurs when a self-styled demagogue uses his access to the same media he says he disdains to sow seeds of confusion, discontent and distrust.

Presidents and other politicians have threatened the press at various points in our nation’s history and worked to gin up opposition. The Nixon administration’s attempt to use the courts to silence The Washington Post during the Watergate investigation remains a particularly egregious example.

More recently, the press has faced a host of challenges unrelated to politics. The advent of the internet has created dual challenges for the industry, eviscerating the advertising financial model that had sustained newspapers for centuries, while also creating a tool by which so much of the content that people once paid for could now be had for free. A series of highly publicized errors by a handful of members of the media have understandably eroded trust in the media. Still, the vast majority of journalists continue to toil in pursuit of nothing other than the truth.

The president has on Twitter and during rallies declared the press “the enemy of the people,” a battle cry taken up by many who support him. He also routinely mislabels things that contradict his world view as “fake,” regardless of the sources that back it up. During a rally earlier this month, he went a step further, saying of the press, “They don’t report it. They only make up stories.”

That is absolutely false. Yes, members of the press sometimes get facts wrong. When they do, they are held accountable by their news organizations as well as others in the industry, and far more often than not, the error is acknowledged in the form of a timely correction. The same cannot be said about this president.

The press is not the enemy of the people. We are people who, like you, have a stake in our communities. We are your neighbors. We are people who live and work in the same towns as you. We send our children to local schools. We sing in the church choir. We struggle to pay our bills. We have relatives serving in the armed forces. We love America.

As journalists, our calling is to provide readers with information they need in order to be an informed citizen. We go to meetings. We ask questions. We research complicated issues. We try to hold the powerful accountable. We do this not simply because it is our vocation, but because we see it as a sacred trust.

We want to be very clear -- our complaint is not with any Trump policy. Some we’ve supported, some we’ve opposed. Voters will get to judge the policy results. Our complaint is that the president, through the false and absurd claims that journalists are “enemies of the people” who “only make up stories,” is intentionally trying to undermine an institution the founders deemed important enough to protect with the First Amendment.

No, the American press is not the enemy of the people, nor is Donald Trump. The enemy of democracy is ignorance, and the only way to battle ignorance is to pursue well-researched, incontrovertible facts. Instead of a serious debate on important issues and pursuit of the truth, Mr. Trump opts for false accusations, name-calling, and demonization of those who don’t toe his line.

Readers have a right and a responsibility to hold the press to a high standard. We welcome that scrutiny. But we refuse to sit idly by while the president employs false premises and outright lies to attack one of the nation’s most vital and enduring institutions in order to score political points.

We love this great nation too much to remain silent.

Editor’s note: Portions of this editorial are from the Cape Cod Times, a Gatehouse Media newspaper.