I have been concerned about freedom of the press since President Trump’s first full day in office.
At our hotel, late, after participating in the Women’s March on Washington, we turned on the TV to get the numbers for the Washington march, as well as the marches across the country. Instead, all stations were running clips of Trump’s exaggerated claims of “the largest crowd in history” for his inauguration, amid a barrage of photos comparing his turnout to past presidents, showing the blatant lie.
Then came the use of the term “fake news” describing the mainstream media coverage, from PBS to CNN to Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, and the term “alternative news” for his version of whatever was happening.
And it’s gone rapidly downhill from there. The treatment and disregard for the very people who are on the front lines of whatever is happening in this country, and worldwide, is appalling.
Trump called our free press not only his enemy but the “enemy of the American people” in his speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee on Feb. 24. And that same day, Shawn Spicer refused to allow The New York Times or CNN to attend his press “gaggle.”
The real journalists and research-based reporters are the very backbone of our democracy. History has shown that dictators get started by suppressing the press and all forms of free speech.
We must do everything possible to protect these courageous women and men, whether by calling or writing our representatives to keep PBS and NPR from having their funds cut or eliminated, to taking out subscriptions to the newspapers and magazines that do real investigative journalism, whether it’s The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly or High Country News.
Do your part. Our democracy depends on it.
Jan Crider
Cortez
