The war against the press comes to the local newsroom

[Commentary] It is heartbreaking, but necessary, to recognize that the openness that defines local news likely carries too high a risk; local newsrooms, at least for now, may have no choice but to fortify themselves. Since Donald Trump chose, in the very earliest days of his presidential campaign, to make attacks on a free press in the United States one of his signature themes, many of us have thought it inevitable that his dangerous rhetoric would one day be a trigger for tragedy. Our focus this long two years has been on the big, high-profile news organizations that most occupy Trump’s obsessions and his Twitter feed. They are what we think about when we worry about threats to the press, and they have become stand-ins for those, inside the government and out, who rail against fake news.

But what we missed is that for most Americans, the media is not some big-city skyscraper or national TV network with layers of security, where everybody needs a badge to get in. It’s our local newsroom down the street, staffed by professionals reporting on what matters most to people where they live. We’re reminded this week that in the war against the press, they may well be the journalists in America who are most at risk.