• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, November 11, 2024

Media groups are nervously approaching the start of the second Trump administration. Will he fulfill his oft-stated threat to reign in the “fake news” business? 

If so, it won’t be easy. The First Amendment is so ingrained as a part of our freedoms that even the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia was a First Amendment absolutist. 

Short of seizing TV stations and newspapers, like a dictator would do, Trump will be limited to lawsuits and to moves like cancelling broadcast TV licenses and to barring reporters from press conferences.

Still, several groups including The Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and Freedom of the Press Foundation have issued statements warning about the perceived threat if he does style himself as a dictator, according to Mother Jones.

“Legal persecution, imprisonment, physical violence, and even killings have sadly become familiar threats for journalists across the world,” the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement. “They must not now also become commonplace in the United States, where threats of violence and online harassment have in recent years become routine.”

Trump famously said he wouldn’t mind it if journalists were shot by assassins trying to kill him.

It is not yet clear if this antipathy will be a fundamental part of administration policy. 

What can the media do differently (in addition to continuing its ardent investigative reporting)?

This is only one person’s opinion, but I thought some of the headlines about Trump showed a regrettable willingness to editorialize -- for instance, the reports that continually branded him as a liar.  

He may be one, but so-called objective journalists and editors should not be so out-front or gratuitous unless it is based on serious new reporting and sourcing. It is so easy to spout what Gore Vidal called the agreed-upon version of the facts. 

Of course, none of this will matter if Trump makes serious moves to undermine an already troubled news industry.

And the media will have to stand up to him, whatever the cost.

Take heart: they will win in the end.