It is heartening at least that Montana newspapers withdrew their endorsements of Republican congressional candidate Greg Gianforte, after he grabbed Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs by the neck for trying to ask him a question, slammed him to the floor and punched him repeatedly (Fox News, 5/24/17). More heartening would be a full recognition across elite media that the incident is far from isolated.
As Huffington Post‘s Michael Calderone (5/24/17), for one, pointed out, a Republican state senator in Alaska, David Wilson, reportedly slapped reporter Nathaniel Herz over a story Wilson didn’t like, and FCC security pinned reporter John M. Donnelly against a wall for trying to ask a commission member a question.
West Virginia reporter Dan Heyman was arrested May 10 for trying to ask Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price whether being a target of domestic violence would be considered a “pre-existing condition,” allowing health insurance to be denied, under the new Republican healthcare bill (FAIR Action Alert, 5/10/17). The charge: “willful disruption of governmental processes.
Calderone noted that this behavior is of course fanned by Donald Trump, who didn’t invent distrust in media but escalated it dramatically in his campaign—blacklisting outlets, shoving reporters around and restricting movements at events, declaring the press the “enemy of the American people”…and now suggesting putting whistleblower journalists in prison.
Establishment journalists failed their “first they came for the Communists…” moment at the very beginning of the Trump administration, when DC police arrested and charged at least nine alternative journalists for covering protests at Trump’s inauguration that included property damage. Charges have since been dropped against most of the reporters, but felony charges are still pending against two: Aaron Cantu (who has written for FAIR.org) faces a maximum of ten years in prison for “rioting,” while Andrei Wood could get up 70 years on charges of rioting and destruction of property.
No evidence has been presented to date that either one had any role at the protests other than covering them as news events. Natasha Lennard reports for Esquire (4/12/17) that defenders say the state’s evidence amounts to video coverage showing people at the beginning of the march, wearing black, and then at the end of the protest, now deemed a riot—proving they could have left but did not.
As a further sign of First Amendment freedoms in jeopardy, Code Pink activist Desiree Fairooz was convicted for “unlawful conduct” after laughing in a Senate conference room when Republican Sen. Richard Shelby said that then-nominee for Attorney General Jeff Sessions had an “extensive record of treating all Americans equally under the law.” She faces up to a year in jail (Vox, 5/8/17). Republican lawmakers in at least 18 states are promoting laws to increase severity of charges for nonviolent protest tactics, like blocking highways.
It’s hard to fathom how a press corps worth its salt would see the imperative of the present as ginning readers up to “say something nice” about Trump, as a regular New York Times feature does, but Calderone cited a survey showing that 75 percent of White House reporters say they view Trump’s anti-press rhetoric as a distraction, rather than a threat. In that vein, CNN‘s Chris Cillizza (5/25/17) has referred to Gianforte’s assault as an “error,” as though it were a tactical misstep rather than an attack on press freedom.
It’s not that Big Media haven’t nodded to these cases, but better than adding slogans about democracy dying in darkness and truth mattering more than ever would be vigorous, sustained, principled defense of the right to protest and report, including while wearing black.
