{"id":318282,"date":"2017-07-21T03:59:49","date_gmt":"2017-07-21T02:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-rights-long-war-on-media\/"},"modified":"2017-07-21T03:59:49","modified_gmt":"2017-07-21T02:59:49","slug":"the-rights-long-war-on-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-rights-long-war-on-media\/","title":{"rendered":"The Right\u2019s Long War on Media"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>Exclusive:<\/strong> A danger from the mainstream media\u2019s Russia-gate obsession is that it reinforces a longstanding right-wing meme about a \u201cliberal media\u201d out to get conservatives, as Jonathan Marshall explains.<\/p>\n<p>By Jonathan Marshall<\/p>\n<p>Never in modern American history has a president so frontally gone to war with the media as Donald Trump, whose speeches and tweet storms blast critical stories as \u201cfake news\u201d and mainstream news outlets as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/post-politics\/wp\/2017\/02\/17\/trump-calls-the-media-the-enemy-of-the-american-people\/?utm_term=.3d1293c7673d\">the enemy of the American people<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_22797\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-01-at-6.04.52-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-01-at-6.04.52-PM-300x206.png\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-22797\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"206\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-01-at-6.04.52-PM-300x206.png 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-01-at-6.04.52-PM-768x526.png 768w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-01-at-6.04.52-PM-160x110.png 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-01-at-6.04.52-PM.png 855w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-22797\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-01-at-6.04.52-PM-300x206.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"206\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-01-at-6.04.52-PM-300x206.png 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-01-at-6.04.52-PM-768x526.png 768w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-01-at-6.04.52-PM-160x110.png 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-01-at-6.04.52-PM.png 855w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Donald Trump being sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cGet used to being stigmatized as \u2018opposition,\u2019\u201d the head of media at Human Rights Watch <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cjr.org\/the_feature\/trump_journalism_press_freedom_global.php\">warned reporters and editors<\/a> shortly after the election. \u201c[Trump\u2019s] basic idea is simple: to delegitimize accountability journalism by framing it as partisan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So far, the Trumpian strategy seems to be working, at least with his base. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanpressinstitute.org\/publications\/reports\/survey-research\/partisanship-attitudes-about-news\/\">A recent poll<\/a> found that fewer than 10 percent of Republicans trust the media a lot, and 6 in 10 complain that the media \u201ckeep political leaders from doing their job.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s critics, particularly in the media, portray his assault on the Fourth Estate as a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/trumps-attacks-on-the-media-are-a-gift-to-tyrants-everywhere\/2017\/03\/07\/51a61350-fe9f-11e6-8ebe-6e0dbe4f2bca_story.html\">gift to tyrants everywhere<\/a>\u201d and as part of a radical campaign to \u201cbuild an autocracy,\u201d in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2017\/03\/how-to-build-an-autocracy\">words<\/a> of former Republican speechwriter David Frum.<\/p>\n<p>I share their concerns, even as I readily acknowledge, <a href=\"https:\/\/cse.google.com\/cse?cx=017930374292714292268%3Avw5cotp1r2c&amp;q=jonathan+marshall+media&amp;sa=Search#gsc.tab=0&amp;gsc.q=jonathan%20marshall%20media&amp;gsc.page=1\">and have often condemned<\/a>, the major media\u2019s widespread and sometimes blatant failings to report some subjects as accurately or fairly as they should.<\/p>\n<p>But many of today\u2019s righteous condemners of Trump fail to see that his attacks on the media are really the culmination of a relentless campaign over the past half century by conservatives to undercut institutions that stand in the way of their grab for power.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Leading the Charge<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Although presidential attacks on the news media <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/the-fix\/wp\/2017\/02\/17\/trumps-war-with-the-media-isnt-new-thomas-jefferson-railed-about-newspaper-lies-too\/?utm_term=.e8dc4fc83d1f\">date back<\/a> to the earliest days of the Republic, the modern conservative war on mainstream media was launched on Nov. 13, 1969, when Vice President Spiro Agnew condemned TV news broadcasters for daring to subject one of President Nixon\u2019s speeches on Vietnam policy to \u201cinstant analysis and querulous criticism\u201d instead&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2017\/07\/20\/the-rights-long-war-on-media\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive: A danger from the mainstream media\u2019s Russia-gate obsession is that it reinforces a longstanding right-wing meme about a \u201cliberal media\u201d out to get conservatives, as Jonathan Marshall explains. By Jonathan Marshall Never in modern American history has a president so frontally gone to war with the media as Donald Trump, whose speeches and tweet [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-318282","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}