Bill Ketter

Presidents, since the nation’s founding, have at times disparaged the press for reporting news and expressing opinions they find uncomfortable or unfavorable.

It is a natural tension that results from the primary purpose of the press to inform the people and the propensity of presidents to control their message to shape the opinion of the people.

Political power does not like to be held accountable. Yet that is the explicit reason James Madison and other authors of the Bill of Rights created the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

President Donald Trump is unusual among presidents in his unrelenting enmity toward the press. He’s made the news media the scapegoat of his populist politics. News is “fake” when he doesn’t like it; journalists are the “enemy of the people” if they don’t toe his line, and no patriotic American should believe anything except his version of the truth.

Ardent fans of Trump gladly embrace his constant berating of the press. They don’t see it for what it is — a deliberate disinformation campaign to distract from Trump’s problems by undermining the credibility of the press. They believe Trump can do no wrong. They applaud when he turns his animus on an “unfriendly” news outlet or journalist.

The latest example occurred Tuesday during a Trump rally in Tampa, Florida. Supporters  screamed vulgarities at reporters, showing their contempt with raised middle fingers. Chants of “CNN sucks!” greeted White House correspondent Jim Acosta during his live reporting on the event. Trump even shared a Twitter video of the CNN badgering with his 53 million followers.

The public castigating of the press has become a regular feature of Trump’s impromptu political rallies, causing CNN and other news organizations to fear for the safety of their journalists.

Acosta said after the Tamp gathering that he’s “very worried” the bellicosity encouraged by the president will lead to violence. “We should not treat our fellow Americans this way,” Acosta tweeted. “The press is not the enemy.”

New York Times Publisher A. G. Sulzberger met with Trump at his invitation the day before the Tampa rally to warn the president his inflammatory anti-press rhetoric has already contributed to increased threats against journalists in the U.S. and abroad and “will lead to violence.”

Trump’s ill will toward journalism and journalists has an edge that goes beyond criticism of the press. It fosters unparalleled public loathing for an institution that’s been critical to our democratic society for more than two centuries.

The ferment of political polarization doesn’t help, causing portrayal of the press as liberal or conservative in news coverage; far right or far left in its commentary. The soil is fertile for a master propagandist like Trump to sow seeds of distrust.

Yet when you truly think about it, the need for a free and independent press as a watchdog on government power and influence has never been greater. We live in an era when truth is easily blurred on the internet and social media by deceptive, misleading and disconnected bits of information.

The role of the press is to connect the dots to the unvarnished truth as it can best be determined. The job of journalists is to report facts that give certainty to uncertainty. They are not the enemy of the people; they are the surrogate of the people.

For the president of the country to inflame the public to disrupt and threaten the safety of journalists is not only insidious, it is destructive to the primary purpose of the press under our form of government.

Bill Ketter is the senior vice president for news for CNHI. Contact him at wketter@cnhi.com.