Donald Trump has lashed out against hundreds of US newspapers that published editorials on Thursday defending press freedom and denouncing his constant attacks on the media.
Tweeting in all capitals, the president wrote: “THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA IS THE OPPOSITION PARTY. It is very bad for our Great Country.” He added: “BUT WE ARE WINNING!”
More than 350 newspapers across America, large and small, responded to Trump’s relentless attacks on much of the mainstream media as “fake news” and the “enemy of the people”. The push was organized by the Boston Globe, and the Guardian added its voice to the mass press protest.
The US Senate unanimously adopted a resolution on Thursday affirming support for a free press and declaring that “the press is not the enemy of the people”.
The non-binding resolution approved by voice vote was a rebuke to Trump who for more than 18 months has frequently called reporters “the enemy of the people”.
The resolution “reaffirms the vital and indispensable role that the free press serves to inform the electorate, uncover the truth, act as a check on the inherent power of the government, further national discourse and debate, and otherwise advance the most basic and cherished democratic norms and freedoms of the United States”.
The Globe quoted its local founding father John Adams, who was born and died in Massachusetts and became America’s second president and said: “The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom.”
Trump responded by doubling down on his attacks, in a Twitter tirade on Thursday morning.
“The Boston Globe, which was sold to the Failing New York Times for 1.3 BILLION DOLLARS (plus 800 million dollars in losses & investment), or 2.1 BILLION DOLLARS, was then sold by the Times for 1 DOLLAR. Now the Globe is in COLLUSION with other papers on free press. PROVE IT!” he said.
Despite Trump’s rhetoric, he claimed to be a supporter of freedom of the press.
“There is nothing that I would want more for our Country than true FREEDOM OF THE PRESS,” he tweeted. “The fact is that the Press is FREE to write and say anything it wants, but much of what it says is FAKE NEWS, pushing a political agenda or just plain trying to hurt people. HONESTY WINS!”
The publications running editorials on Thursday included the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and Miami Herald.
The Globe’s editorial page proposed last week that newspapers respond in unison to the escalating attacks.
“This relentless assault on the free press has dangerous consequences,” the Globe wrote in its editorial.
“The greatness of America is dependent on the role of a free press to speak the truth to the powerful.”
A quarter of Americans and nearly half of Republicans now agree with the view that the president should be able to close news outlets for bad behavior, according to a recent poll quoted in the Globe.
The New York Times encouraged readers to subscribe to their local newspapers – a sector that is struggling financially across the US.
“Criticizing the news media – for underplaying or overplaying stories, for getting something wrong – is entirely right. News reporters and editors are human, and make mistakes. Correcting them is core to our job,” the editorial board wrote.
“But insisting that truths you don’t like are ‘fake news’ is dangerous to the lifeblood of democracy. And calling journalists the ‘enemy of the people’ is dangerous, period.”
On its own editorial page it quoted short extracts from dozens of newspapers that defended press freedom as part of the orchestrated protest in print.
The Hillsboro Tribune in Oregon wrote: “The news isn’t ‘fake’ just because you see things differently.”
The Johnson Newspaper Corporation of upstate New York wrote: “The president wants his supporters to conclude that what they’re learning from media outlets isn’t real … well, someone who has Mr Trump’s history of lying can’t be taken at his word on this.”
The Hazen Star of North Dakota stated, simply: “Asking hard questions is not fake news.”
