Suzanne Nossel

A coalition of more than 45 organizations and scholars has called on Congress to include vital funding for local news in the next coronavirus stimulus package. Free Press Action, PEN America, Common Cause,  and other organizations urged the House and Senate leadership to consider local press an “essential service” vital to the nation’s health, prosperity, and recovery. The organizations ask Congress to allocate at least $5 billion to support local journalism in the next stimulus package.

When the president’s derogatory rhetoric sparks hostility and even violence, it lays bare a dark side to the United States’ proud liberal approach to speech. The US system offers no obvious way (short of voting a president out of office after four years) to contain a politician whose verbal demonization of rivals and the press provides what some citizens view as a White House invitation to lash out violently against their perceived opponents. Noxious and bigoted attacks are hardly unique to the Donald Trump era.

President Donald Trump's frequent threats and hostile acts directed toward journalists and the media are not only offensive and unbecoming of a democratic leader; they are also illegal. Although the president can launch verbal tirades against the press, he cannot use the powers of his office to suppress or punish speech he doesn’t like. When President Trump proposes government retribution against news outlets and reporters, his statements cross the line.

[Commentary] The message from America’s highest official — that the world’s most professional and trusted media outlets are malicious frauds, that facts and fakeries are equivalent, and that press access to policymaking and diplomacy must submit to the whims of the powerful — represent a set of values that could undermine democracy. As every parent, corporate CEO, and Fox News staffer knows, values are set at the top.

Regardless of how he treats reporters behind closed doors, President Donald Trump has signaled publicly that it’s okay to play nasty with the press. The relationship between the media and the state is an uneasy truce; Trump has offered public officials license to rewrite the terms as they see fit.

[Suzanne Nossel is executive director of the Pen American Center]