Voters had disregarded news about the arrest and prosecution of a former aide accused of breaking the law to the White House for a second term, and was accused of breaking the law and violating it to power. Now, the newly encouraging president and his top officials have sent messages to reporters who have actively covered it all. It was time for reward.
As senior officials blasted journalists as “arrageous elitists” without contacting “real America,” the administration threatened the licenses of local television stations carrying newscasts from major networks, and “because liberals” It has been moved to cut funds for PBS.
The president was not Donald J. Trump. He was Richard M. Nixon. A scandal that he thought had Outrun, Watergate would eventually force him to resign. And his brave anti-pressing move, initially appearing in the cow journalist, will stall in an onslaught of revelation about his role in covering up his misconduct in the West Wing.
That dark chapter in media history relies on a forceful approach to traditional journalists who have all the characteristics of the collapse of the press that he attempted to do about 50 years ago, so once again It's related again.
Trump and his aides have called out liar reporters from major press agencies. falsely accusing them of accepting government payments for the Democratic treatment (misrepresentation of agency spending on news subscriptions). And they did a show offering more space to their best friends from new right-wing alternatives, while reducing their excellence in the White House and Pentagon briefing rooms.
Trump has mostly united the iconic people, and is now familiar with attempts to use the government lever against traditional journalists who are far beyond his first attacks. I'm doing it.
He and people nearby use the Federal Communications Commission to punish broadcast news networks, refund PBS, and even prosecute journalists for investigations against Trump and his supporters and reporting on criminal cases. I threatened.
“We have not experienced this kind of raw, raw use of government power for ideological purposes since Nixon,” said Andrew Schwartzman, a longtime public interest lawyer who specializes in media regulation. It states.
“In many ways,” he said, “the threat is bigger,” bringing a more difficult edge to weaker press squads.
“The White House strongly believes in the First Amendment,” Trump spokesperson Caroline Leavitt told reporters. However, at her first briefing, she warned: ”
Much of the early actions came from the FCC, an independent body with a bipartisan board of directors whose chairs were chosen by the president. Trump nominated longtime Republican commissioner Brendan Kerr to the Post in November, calling him a “free speech fighter.”
It has already raised a Nixon-style threat to link TV station license renewals to government decisions regarding content. This has some room to do it under regulations that still require licensed broadcasters that serve “public interest” – Kerr revives previously rejected complaints to three traditional broadcast networks In contrast, we have begun investigating PBS and NPR.
The investigation into CBS was conducted publicly on a recent day when the network collaborated with the FCC's request for information related to compiling a “60-minute” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris last fall. Trump has accused the network in his own multi-billion dollar lawsuit of seemingly altering the interview to boost Ms Harris' presidential election, which CBS denied.
Mr. Kerr could create a split between him and Democrats on the committee, considering his agency's review of the pending merger between CBS parent company Paramount and Skydance. He said it was sexual.
“This is a retaliatory move by the government against broadcasters that are perceived as content and compensation at a disadvantage,” Biden appointee Commissioner Anna M. Gomez said in a statement. “It is designed to instill fear in broadcasters and influence network editorial decisions.”
Kerr's representative did not respond to a message requesting comment.
The CBS agreement on Wednesday also raised concerns among amendment lawyers and media critics to provide the FCC with a live transcript and a video of Harris' interview.
Alsykes, the Republican chairman of the FCC during the administration of President George HW Bush, wrote on Maryland's local news site Talbot Spy: it's not. ”
CBS says it is acting in accordance with the law and the transcription indicates that the interview was properly processed. But its compliance is a fear of the public that the network and its parent company are participating in the apparent plea trends by media companies suddenly faced with a presidential administration that is not embarrassed about retaliation against perceived enemies. Added.
Paramount is also considering attacking the deal with Trump to end CBS's lawsuit. This is considering following a recent decision to agree with Facebook owner ABC News and his multi-million dollar settlement.
“We've seen a lot of effort into the development of our work,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of Columbia University's Night First Revision Institute. Although the settlements are not large in numbers, he said they are questioning whether traditional presses have a place to “support power.”
These questions also occurred in the Nixon era and for good reason.
CBS founder William S. Paley agreed to end the new practice of providing an “immediate analysis” of the president's speech after sustained White House pressure. war.
As Nixon's allies challenged the license of a TV station owned by the Washington Post, publisher Katherine Graham called Starwatergate correspondent Bob Woodward to her office, where he co-written the story. We are looking for peace of mind about the reports we were pursuing with Carl Bernstein.
“The power and anger of the administration were their biggest after the landslide elections, and we were our weakest,” she recalled in her memoir. “We were scared,” she added.
This post was often unparalleled reports about Watergate. Due to all the White House rage over the scandal coverage, many media outlets first dealt with it badly. Of course, the post, CBS, and other media were proven when the scandal became a full flower and covered it by distinguishing it.
However, major newspapers and broadcasters were the only games of the time. And polls showed that Americans overwhelmingly trust them.
These numbers plummeted over time as the media shared the missteps and their reliability fell into a sustained, conservative attack.
Currently, Trump has an entire cable network (Fox News). The opinion programme is home to an army of open fans and an online information war combatants who receive additional amplification on social media platforms, including Elon, where his version of Reality promotion receives additional amplification. Mask X and his own true society.
Even while putting pressure on traditional journalists, Trump has pledged to “stop censorship of all governments.” But in that case, he appears to have a technology platform in mind, and he has been left with the Biden administration to loose content about public health information during the 2020 election lies and the joint building pandemic. It appears to have been in mind that he faced unfair pressure.
The contradictory approach to old and new media is clearly visible at two hearings held by Trump allies in Capitol Hill. One explores “systematically biased content” for PBS and NPR, being overseen by Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. The other, scheduled for the House Judiciary Committee, where the chairman is Ohio's representative Jim Jordan, will investigate the Biden administration's “censorship campaign” against the platform and “future threats to free speech.”
