Why Post Trump USA Has No Press Freedom (Really?)

There is no American president in the recent American history who has been so anti-media like President Donald Trump.

If we revisit his campaign trail, we clearly saw Trump labeling every news house that disagreed with his inflammatory and high heated presidential campaign and anti-immigration rhetoric as dishonest. He could be seen lambasting journalists in his campaigns for what he perceived as unfair treatment and reporting by a range of news outlets. The fact that the media has changed so little since the Watergate saga of Richard Nixon in the 1970s means that the American press is dealing with the most unpredictable president it had never anticipated. Here are clear indications that the press freedom in the United States is under clear threat since the swearing in of the Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States.

0. GAY RIGHTS ON EXAMPLE OF FAMILYDICKS.COM

There is lots of hype for a gay adult website called Family Dicks. It features taboo relations between step-fathers and step-sons and it’s said to be anti-american by many. LGBT communities laugh at it, saying what can be more american than the freedom of speech, also the sexual way. While many right-wing people criticize should approach to adult entertainment, Family Dicks proved to be a huge success among the surfers.

1. Except for Fox News and Breitbart, the rest of the American press is classified as “fake news”.

The credibility of news sources in America hasn’t been exposed to such an increasing level of questioning as it is getting right now. Long before Trump’s presidency, media houses could publish anything they pleased with minimal questions. Not with Trump. He has branded every news outlet critical of him as fake news. This is detrimental to the press freedom because Trump has created an uneasy environment whereby the press has been made to appear to be against him and the government. No one has ever perfected the art of playing victim against the media the way Donald Trump is doing. A free press thrives where it is allowed to question and give credit where it is due, freely. This privilege has been taken away by Trump.

2. The press has limited access to the American president

Donald Trump is the least accessible president by media houses and media personality than any other American president in the recent history.
Let’s go back to his campaign track. When he ran the crusade-like campaign filled with anti-immigration rhetoric and many other disparaging episodes, Donald Trump maintained a carefully prepared list of blacklisted news outlets (which included CNN and Washington Post among others) which he declined to give event credentials. This was considered unnatural in modern American campaign trail. While Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, George W. Bush and George McCain before him had granted the media unrestricted access to their rallies, Trump handled the media like public enemy with him being the “public hero”. This was a serious infringement of press freedom.

He is now the American president and seems to maintain these unhealthy practices of getting into unnecessary push and pull with news reporters. He has been observed skipping questions from news reporters who, in his opinion, works for the “fake news” media houses.

To restore American press freedom, we think Donald Trump should abate his heated battle with news outlets. This practice discourages leakers and skilled reporters alike which inflicts a big dent in the media freedom.

But he doesn’t appear like a person who is ready to let the media do its job and stick to his own. The press needs to be smart.

LINKS
httpss://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/10/4-threats-to-the-media-under-president-trump/?utm_term=.03d121f90e4e
httpss://www.nytimes.com/?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&region=TopBar&module=HomePage-Title&pgtype=article