Journalism

[Commentary] At a certain point, we must all pause to ask: How is it that the only time our mouthy, straight-shooting, politically incorrect president seems to bite his tongue is when he is called upon to denounce white supremacists? Does it have much to do with the fact that he lines the senior ranks of his administration with outspoken white supremacists, including Steve Bannon, formerly of Breitbart? And why is the administration so interested in curbing civil rights investigations and stopping funding for counter-white nationalism efforts? These questions should trouble every American, and therefore be on the tip of the tongue of every journalist.

Until we get real answers, it’s time to stop calling the president’s favored political zealots by their favored self-identifying term. Journalists can’t allow agents of hatred to set how they are defined. Their rebrand is little more than a cover-up for white supremacists to continue to commit foul acts of disrespect, intimidation, and violence.

[Shaya Tayefe Mohajer is a freelance journalist in Los Angeles.]

It’s not easy being the first and only Fox News host in Silicon Valley. But Steve Hilton, a tech entrepreneur who was once chief adviser to former Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, added that role to his résumé in June. Now every week, Hilton flies from the home he shares with his high-profile tech executive wife, Rachel Whetstone, in Silicon Valley’s billionaire enclave of Atherton (CA) to Fox’s studios in Los Angeles to host “The Next Revolution With Steve Hilton.” Fox News markets the Sunday night program as exploring “the impact of the populist movement.” All of which makes life complicated for Hilton in overwhelmingly liberal Silicon Valley, where supporters of President Trump are nearly nonexistent and few think populism would improve their lives.

[Commentary] Joe McCarthy loved to savage reporters, singling them out by name at his rallies in the 1950s. The Republican senator from Wisconsin knew the work of each reporter who covered his years-long campaign aimed at rooting out the communists who were supposedly seeded throughout the federal government. Then, moments after leaving the stage, McCarthy would sidle up to a reporter he’d just finished flaying and toss an arm around him: “That was just good fun.” Reporters who’ve covered Donald Trump anytime in the past four decades know that sense of whiplash all too well.

President Trump and McCarthy share a populist, demagogic speaking style and a propensity to say anything to win the moment. The two men are often compared because they both aggressively hit back at their critics and tended to inflate minor slights or partisan rows into threats against the nation. But their similarities go deeper: Both won and cemented support by using, attacking and foiling the news media. Both deployed a crazy quilt of behavior to demand news coverage — and then stomped on those same organizations as disloyal liars conspiring against them. And both enjoyed extended periods of popularity even amid reporting about their erratic behavior and tendency to say things that weren’t true. In the end, McCarthy fell from grace, but journalism alone wasn’t enough to end his destructive crusade. The news reporting about McCarthy’s excesses did over time diminish his popular support, but ultimately that souring of sentiment had to filter up from the public to their elected representatives. It took years, but McCarthy was finally held to account.

Former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly has launched his own daily online news program, building on his “No Spin News” podcast. O'Reilly, once a conservative powerhouse at Fox News, was fired in April after The New York Times reported he sexually harassed at least seven women at the network. O'Reilly posted the first half-hour of the show on billoreilly.com on Aug 9, but only subscribers with premium membership — which cost $4.95 per month — could watch. On Aug 10, the show was made available to the public.

CNN is reporting that it has severed ties with commentator Jeffery Lord on Aug 10 after he tweeted “Sieg Heil!” at a liberal activist on Twitter. Lord, a columnist for conservative magazine The American Spectator, tweeted the Nazi victory salute at Angelo Carusone, president of the liberal group Media Matters for America. “Nazi salutes are indefensible,” a CNN spokesperson said, according to the network. “Jeffrey Lord is no longer with the network.” In the opinion piece that eventually led to his ouster from CNN, Lord took issue with a Media Matters campaign to get Fox's Sean Hannity fired from his network. Media Matters urged its supporter to pressure advertisers on Hannity’s program to withdraw their support. Lord argued in his piece that this was a “fascist game” and an effort to end Hannity’s “free speech.”

[Commentary] Recent statement by Attorney General Jeff Sessions mark a serious intervention in a delicate, decades-long balancing act between the federal government and professional journalists.

A change in the policy about press subpoenas could have grave consequences for the government and press alike. A subpoena is the legal tool that forces an individual to testify or produce evidence. When subpoenas are issued to journalists (or their communications providers) in leak investigations, it is most often for the purpose of identifying a leaker: Match the relevant reporter’s telephone records to an individual with access to the classified information — or better yet, force the reporter to testify directly as to the source — and you’ve got your leaker. But you’ve also compromised the press’s ability to protect their sources, undermining their ability to do their job. Reporters who refuse to reveal their sources in compliance with such subpoenas risk contempt charges.

While the Constitution limits government intrusion on the freedom of speech and of the press, the law does not offer absolute protection for journalists against revealing their sources. Congress has not enacted robust protections and the Supreme Court has not interpreted the First Amendment as itself embodying such a privilege — nothing approximating a broad “press privilege” relieving reporters from revealing sources. Such a privilege is protected at the state level in nearly all states. But no such privilege has been recognized uniformly at the federal level.

[Murillo is a third-year student at Harvard Law School, where she is an editor of the Harvard Law Review]

“What makes Trump different is that he’s systematically trying to delegitimize the news as an institution because they won’t cover him the way he wants to be covered. That’s what’s different here.”
-- Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute

As a media correspondent for The Times, I cover the intersection of journalism and politics, a juncture that has seen its share of pileups in 2017. The president labeled the mainstream media “the enemy of the American people.” The White House briefing turned into a daily grudge match over the nature of transparency and truth. Alarms are sounding about an erosion of press freedoms once thought sacrosanct in a democracy. The White House press secretary plays a central role in that debate.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who at 34 is among the youngest people to hold the title, must manage the message of her administration and liaise with dozens of reporters, while also acting as a frequent vessel of President Donald Trump’s anti-media ire. “I’ve grown up with the press, in the press,” she told me, referring to her upbringing as the daughter of Mike Huckabee, the Republican former governor of Arkansas and a two-time presidential candidate. “I’ve never seen the level of hostility that this press corps has to the president.”

The New York Times has issued a correction after publishing a climate report on Aug 8 it said was "leaked" to the paper by a scientist -- only to learn the report had been online for months. Under the front-page sub-headline, "Fears of Suppression," the article claimed the draft report had "not been made public" by the Trump administration but "a copy of it was obtained by The New York Times." The report was available on the Internet Archive non-profit website at the start of the year, however. It was also available on The National Academies of Sciences Public Access Records Office website, which is accessible to the public. The Times issued a correction on page A17 of its Aug 9 edition. "An article on Tuesday about a sweeping federal climate change report referred incorrectly to the availability of the report," the paper wrote. "While it was not widely publicized, the report was uploaded by the nonprofit Internet Archive in January; it was not first made public by The New York Times."

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders slammed the Times for not reaching out to the White House press office for comment before publishing the Tuesday report. "It’s very disappointing, yet entirely predictable to learn The New York Times would write off a draft report without first verifying its contents with the White House or any of the federal agencies directly involved with climate and environmental policy," Huckabee Sanders said.

Mozilla, the creators of the popular Firefox web browser, are launching a new program to counter fake news stories. Fabricated news, made to mislead or turn a profit, is a growing problem in online communities. The U.S. intelligence community assessed that Russia used social media to propagate misinformation campaigns throughout the 2016 presidential race. "Misinformation devalues the open web," said Katharina Borchert, Mozilla chief innovation officer. "We see this as a threat to the fabric of our society."

The Mozilla Information Trust Initiative (MITI) will increase funding for research on misinformation, the first findings to be released later in 2017. The company hopes to leverage Firefox's size and reach to get data about news browsing habits. MITI will also tailor products to amplify actual news over fake news, expand an effort to increase digital news literacy and fund designers to work on software to provide on-the-fly visualizations of the problem.