Donald Trump spent his first 347 days in the White House telling 1,950 fibs and lies. Yet he calls journalists like me “dishonest,” “disgusting,” and “scum.”
That’s how tyrants work, says Robert Reich, who explains the four classic authoritarian tactics Trump uses to undermine the ability of the media to hold him accountable for his chronic lies:
According to a new report by the Columbia Journalism Review, Trump has attacked the press 990 times on Twitter since announcing his candidacy for president. Here are the 4 ways he tries to intimidate and control the media: pic.twitter.com/7sSC9e1Koz
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) January 2, 2018
- Berate the media.
- Limit media access.
- Threaten the media.
- Bypass the media.
A leader who attacks the press to hide his own lies is dishonest. This behavior should disgust all Americans who love truth, liberty, and country. The 2018 elections are our chance to remove this scum, or at least neutralize this scum’s ability to further attack journalism and corrode our public institutions.
Related: The International Federation of Journalists says 81 journalists and media staff were killed around the world in 2017. That’s the lowest number of journalist killings since 2007. However, IFJ general secretary Anthony Bellanger says, “…impunity for killings still runs at over 90%, self-censorship remains widespread and more journalists are in jail than at any time in recent years.” The Committee to Protect Journalists counts 262 journalists imprisoned in 2017 for doing their jobs. 21 have been imprisoned on charges of “false news.”
I think Mr. Trump means journalists like newspapermen and TV reporters. I don’t think Mr. Trump views bloggers like he views the media. He probably hates radio too, but they don’t really report anything like newspapermen and TV reports, they just read other people’s news into the broadcast can.
Show of hands of those who know what is gonna happen on January 19, 2018…Anyone..
Dictators hate it when they are exposed for who they are.
Drumpf recently sat down for an interview with NYT, shortly after which he took to Tweeting and hammered the newspaper about something.
NYT has a new editor, another Salzburg.
No, Grudz, I think he means anyone who questions his marketing, branding, bragging, and lies. But of course he views bloggers in the same general light and wants everyone else to. Consider his embrace of Steve Bannon and his effort to make everyone think Breitbart is good journalism while the New York Times is failing.
Jerry, what?
And now we learn that Bannon has accused Donald Trump Jr., Kushner, et al of “treason” for meeting with the Russians at Trump Tower to obtain their help in the election. What next?
http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/03/politics/bannon-wolff-fire-and-fury/index.html
bearcreekbat, we all knew that any Trump conspiracy would come out in the wash because nobody has loyalty to Trump (and/because visa versa). During the campaign, through initial HW staffing decisions, and since, everyone is willing to point fingers to save themselves. That is will be the key to unlocking all this mess. Trump is no Nixon – a leader who others will take a fall for.
Trump is scared to death of all forms of media. He has not held a press conference in 320 days, I kind of don’t blame him since his first and only press conference a year ago nearly broke out in riot.
Trump’s White House press secretary state he doesn’t need to hold press conferences because he uses Twitter. Yikes!
His first State of Union Address is something to look forward to, bring it on.
Among Trump’s Tweets yesterday was this little nugget,
“I will be announcing The Most Dishonest & Corrupt Media Awards of the year on Monday at 5 o’clock. Subjects will cover Dishonesty & Bad Reporting in various categories from Fake News Media. Stay Tuned”.
Now we have something to look forward to on Monday.
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”~ Robert Reich
We run out of money on the 19th of January. Hope there is not a blizzard that comes through then. This latest storm front on the East Coast will need funding to pay for the damages and the United States has not even paid for the last disasters. We are all Puerto Rico now. Roypublicans prove that they are simply not capable to operate a business little alone a government. Clearly they are all trust babies only able to operate monetarily in short periods of time. To solve it all and make them do the people’s work, would be to ignore their hand puppet in the White House. Putin has his hand so far up trump’s backside that you can see the iron fist.
Will the real Alex Vogel please stand up.
Remember it is other people’s money dirty Dems love to spend and spend an……wait a minute, wingnuts have controlled the purse strings for the majority of the past 30 years when the debt and deficits exploded.
Here is Paul Ryan’s take on deficits-
https://tinyurl.com/y7vz4zru