On Aug. 2, President Donald Trump stood onstage at an arena in Wilkes Barre, Pa., where he revisited one of his favorite pastimes: lashing out at the press. Lashing out at people like my colleagues and me.
"Only negative stories from the fakers back there,” said Trump, referring to the journalists in a holding pen at the back of the arena.
As The State reported it, “With each denunciation, the crowd jeered and screamed at the press.” This of course is not the first occasion Trump has set his sights on the news media, which he has characterized as “the enemy of the American people.” Since even before his inauguration, Trump has eroded the trust that exists between the press and the public, chipping away at a relationship that has been crucial to our nation’s democratic fabric since the beginning.
Trump has sown seeds of distrust, his toxicity having a trickle-down effect — state and local politicians and public figures now often echo the president’s rhetoric, combating earnest, good-faith reporting by decrying what they call “fake news.” We’ve seen it firsthand here in Tennessee, with state legislators and Metro Council members using the phrase. “Fake news.”
“Enemy of the American people.” These words are blunt instruments used to bludgeon an industry that has already been severely wounded due to economic factors. Newsrooms are losing staff and resources. Alt-weeklies are folding. There are fewer and fewer reporters to cover things like city council meetings, school board races, government corruption and local policing — fewer professionals holding those in power accountable for their actions. And now we’re facing attacks from those who would dismiss our efforts as “fake news.”
According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, 26 percent of voters think the media is the “enemy of the people,” with 51 percent of the Republicans who were polled calling the press America’s enemy. More locally, 56 percent of likely Tennessee voters disapprove of the mainstream media's job performance, according to a poll conducted last week, with 75 percent of Republican-likely voters disapproving. These alarming statistics clearly have a great deal to do with Trump’s ongoing campaign to discredit and dismantle the media.
Today the Scene joins hundreds of other newspapers who are publishing editorials promoting freedom of the press and combating President Trump’s attacks on the media. The effort is being coordinated by The Boston Globe, whose opinion page deputy managing editor Marjorie Pritchard recently spoke to the Associated Press about the effort.
‘‘We are not the enemy of the people,’’ said Pritchard.
‘‘I hope it would educate readers to realize that an attack on the First Amendment is unacceptable,’’ Pritchard later continued. ‘‘We are a free and independent press, it is one of the most sacred principles enshrined in the Constitution.’’
At the Scene, we endeavor to bring you vital stories that matter to our community — stories about the complications surrounding how our state carries out the death penalty, the effects of ICE raids on local migrant workers, how members of the local restaurant scene are addressing gentrification, the risks DIY music venues face, and much, much more. The stories you see in the Scene are the result of the decisions we make as journalists — not enemies of the American people, but Americans. Tennesseans. Neighbors. Friends.
We are not the enemy of the people.
