White House Echoes Beijing in Treatment of US Press

Americans now find themselves in day four of a real-world experiment: What happens when an elected official with an authoritarian bent and a long-nurtured hatred of media criticism collides with a free press backed by strong democratic institutions?

I have spent years covering the media landscape in China, an illiberal one-party state with notorious and worsening censorship. In White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s hostile remarks, I immediately recognized what I have come to know very well — an explicit government demand for media censorship. I was far from alone in my alarm. The New York Times reported that the “news media world found itself in a state of shock” after the day’s remarks. Social media teemed with jokes at Spicer’s expense, juxtaposing his photo with outlandish claims like “the world is flat.” To some degree, clashing with the press is par for the course for governments and leaders around the world. But the authoritarian government in Beijing has shown how to delegitimize those outlets it doesn’t control, by presenting them as biased, unreliable, or unfair.