Media's Pathetic Response

As frontline defenders of the First Amendment, news organizations can’t fight Trump's assault with statements and surrender.

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President Trump doubled down Tuesday on his cancel-culture, state-speech attack on The Associated Press — and the rest of the media remained cowed. Their morbidity is profound: He will come for them, too.

“The Associated Press just refuses to go with what the law is,” Trump said, referring to his executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

That’s a lie. No law prevents the AP from choosing the style it deems fit.

Credit: USA Today

The non-profit, nonpartisan news agency explained why it can’t impose Trump’s will on the rest of the world. “The Associated Press will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen,” the AP announced last week, when Trump first banned the outlet from White House events and Air Force One, where it plays a critical role in exercising the First Amendment.

How has the media responded?

• The White House Correspondents Association issued a statement a week ago, saying it’s wrong to punish journalists for doing their jobs.

• Several reporters, including the well-regarded Peter Baker of the New York Times, used their personal social media accounts to defend The AP.

• At least one news organization complied with the president’s demands.

Pathetic. As frontline defenders of the First Amendment, news organizations can’t fight Trump’s assault with statements and surrender. They must meet punishment with punishment, countering Trump’s attention-seeking gambit with a response that draws attention to his anti-constitutional slippery slope.

If he can ban The AP from White House events, he can ban the New York Times.

If he can ban The AP from Air Force One, he can ban FOX News.

If he can bully one news organization into complying with state-mandated speech, he can bully them all.

Or worse:

If he can punish the media, he can punish you. He can tell you what to say and what not to say. He can put a dagger in the First Amendment and and rename it the Trump Amendment.

Credit: The AP

AP spokeswoman Lauren Easton framed the debate perfectly: “This is about the government telling the public and press what words to use and retaliating if they do not follow government orders. The White House has restricted AP’s coverage of presidential events because of how we refer to a location.”

Boycott

My proposal: News organizations should boycott the White House briefings, denying the White House its platform to lie about The AP and the Gulf of Mexico policy. Journalists could use time normally wasted in the briefing room to do, well, journalism, while media PR teams leverage the boycott to explain to the American people why their rights are as much at stake as AP’s.

I understand the objections to my idea, and address them here and here. I’m open to better approaches.

But talking softly while Trump wields a big stick is an abdication of the media’s responsibility to the Constitution.

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