Democracy Dies in Compliance: The War on Journalism in Trump’s America
Trump holds up Washington Post headline announcing acquittal, 2020 // Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons, RandomUserGuy1738
In 2017, after President Donald J Trump’s first inauguration, the Washington Post adopted the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness”, reflecting the widespread sentiment that journalists were frontline soldiers in the battle against misinformation, fear-mongering, and authoritarianism. But one month after Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and owner of the Post, visited Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring, the paper decided to test out a new slogan: “Riveting storytelling for all of America.” Talk about priorities.
Trump has long harbored resentment towards mainstream media outlets that refuse to fall in line with his concocted narratives. Journalists withstood his attacks during his first presidential term, but under his second term, political fear has shifted the landscape in media outlets’ upper ranks. The acquiescence of the 76-time Pullitzer winning Washington Post represents only one front among many where journalism is losing its independence.
On February 11, the White House took the unprecedented steps to ban the Associated Press, a global news organization with a history of nearly two centuries of impactful reporting, from the press pool over its refusal to use the name “Gulf of America” in its reporting. By the end of February, however, the administration was no longer satisfied with merely using threats to ensure compliance with ego-stroking policies like Gulf’s name change. Instead, it announced that it would hand-pick news outlets to be given privileged access to Air Force One and the Oval Office. In their recent book, Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman frame 21st century authoritarians as “Spin Dictators” who use discreet manipulation to gain control. In modern society, the apparent death of free press is caused not by neat and tidy legislation against opposition journalists, but rather by slow processes of marginalization.
Like any good tyrant, President Trump doesn’t need to do the work of suppression himself. Between scribbling plans for a resort in Gaza and deciding which ally to alienate next, he’d hardly have time for rooting out all those pesky editors and cartoonists obsessed with “doing their jobs.” Better to discuss tax cuts for the rich and let billionaire owners like Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong clamp down on their papers. After all, it worked in Hungary, Turkey, and his beloved Russia.
And if the carrot doesn’t work, the stick will. For all his professed hatred of the courts, President Trump has wielded the mighty lawsuit with remarkable enthusiasm. Though ultimately declared invalid, his case accusing the Des Moines Register of publishing an inaccurate poll opened the floodgates of litigation. Since then, he has filed lawsuits against CBS, ABC, and Simon & Schuster and turned agencies into channels for aerating personal grievances, directing Congress to probe PBS and NPR and the FCC to investigate PBS, NPR, Comcast, NBC, and CBS.
As if that weren’t enough, Trump insists that the government must be purged of “liberal fake news.” On 11 February, the State Department ordered the suspension of “all non-mission critical contracts for media subscriptions,” followed by a memo specifically targeting the Economist, the New York Times, Politico, Bloomberg News, the Associated Press and Reuters. Conveniently, Fox News seems to be left out of the memo because, apparently, the only news deemed credible is the kind produced by companies with ties to Cabinet officials.
When the Right insists on redefining truth and history, the truth-tellers and the record-keepers become existential threats. Ultimately, painting journalists as traitors achieves two goals: it takes away oppositions’ power, and in making “fake news” the problem, it distracts from real issues like a crashing stock market, rising egg prices, and a constant disregard for the Constitution. Luckily for “King” Trump, there are plenty of dictatorships to look to as a road map.