{"id":327877,"date":"2017-09-27T03:06:39","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T02:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/corporate-media-analysts-indifference-to-us-journalists-facing-70-years-in-prison\/"},"modified":"2017-09-27T03:06:39","modified_gmt":"2017-09-27T02:06:39","slug":"corporate-media-analysts-indifference-to-us-journalists-facing-70-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/corporate-media-analysts-indifference-to-us-journalists-facing-70-years-in-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Media Analysts\u2019 Indifference to US Journalists Facing 70 Years in Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

For over two years, many in corporate media have been trumpeting the looming threat to a free press posed by Donald Trump. \u201cWould President Trump Kill Freedom of the Press?\u201d Slate<\/b> (3\/14\/16<\/a>) wondered in the midst of the primaries; after the election, the New York Times<\/b> (1\/13\/17<\/a>) warned of \u201cDonald Trump\u2019s Dangerous Attacks on the Press,\u201d and the Atlantic<\/b> (2\/20\/17<\/a>) declared it \u201c A Dangerous Time for the Press and the Presidency.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Aaron<\/p>\n

Reporter Aaron Cantu’s press credentials<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s strange, then, that the attack on the press that kicked off the Trump administration\u2014the arrest and subsequent threatening of two journalists with 70 years in prison\u2014has been met with total silence from most of these same outlets. Aaron Cant\u00fa, Santa Fe Reporter <\/b>staff writer and editor at the New Inquiry<\/b> (and a contributor<\/a> to FAIR.org)<\/b>, and professional photographer Alexei Wood<\/a> are both facing decades in prison<\/a> for the act of covering the January 20 unrest in DC\u2014charged with felony rioting for little more than being in the proximity of window-breaking and brick-throwing. (Prosecutors initially brought and then dropped felony charges against six other reporters<\/a>, though how their cases differ from Cant\u00fa and Wood\u2019s is unclear.)<\/p>\n

ACLU lawyer Scott Michelman insists<\/a> that these arrests \u201cpunish journalists for being near the action\u201d and will \u201cinevitably chill freedom of the press and, with it, First Amendment rights not only of the journalists themselves, but of all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The three most influential media reporters in US media\u2014CNN<\/b>\u2019s Brian Stelter, New York Times<\/b>\u2019 Jim Rutenberg and Washington Post<\/b>\u2019s Erik Wemple\u2014have completely ignored the felony rioting charges leveled against the two #J20 journalists altogether. In their dozens of columns, reports, and on-air segments since the arrests nine months ago, neither Stelter nor Rutenberg nor Wemple has made a single mention of the reporters facing jail time.<\/p>\n

\u201cTop Journalists Warn of Threats to Press Freedom Under Trump,\u201d warned Stelter \u00a0(11\/22\/17<\/a>) right after Trump\u2019s election. Citing his boss (and the person most responsible<\/a> for Trump) CNN<\/b> head Jeff Zucker and his colleague Christiane Amanpour, Stelter sounded the alarm on the authoritarian tendencies of the incoming Trump regime.<\/p>\n

\"Alexei<\/p>\n

Journalist Alexei Wood being arrested by a DC police officer while covering the inauguration protests<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Jim Rutenberg (7\/2\/17<\/a>) \u00a0later joined in with a Fourth of July-themed breakdown of press freedoms under siege by the Trump administration. Rutenberg lamented Trump\u2019s \u201cpersonal attacks against journalists,\u201d mean GIFs and misuse of the \u201cfake news\u201d label, as well as Republican politician Greg Gianforte\u2019s body-slamming<\/a> Guardian<\/b> reporter Ben Jacobs. But Rutenberg, like Stelter, was entirely silent on the Trump Department of Justice threatening two journalists with generations in prison for the crime of reporting. For some unknown reason, this doesn\u2019t register as an attack on the press.<\/p>\n

The Post<\/b>\u2019s Erik Wemple\u2014though not as vocal in his warnings about Trump\u2019s attacks on press freedom as Stelter and Rutenberg\u2014still holds one of the most influential media columns in the country. His total silence also speaks to the broader near-blackout on the #J20 mass arrest and prosecution.<\/p>\n

As FAIR \u00a0(7\/13\/17<\/a>) has noted before, corporate media have expressed collective indifference to the unprecedented mass arrests of the #J20 protesters, while moral-grandstanding at the Russian government for its mass arrests of protesters in June.<\/p>\n

The Times<\/b>\u2019 Rutenberg found time for not one, not two, but four different articles (9\/18\/16<\/a>, 12\/4\/16<\/a>, 4\/17\/17<\/a>, 9\/17\/17<\/a>) on the corrosive effects on American democracy of the Russian government-run outlet RT<\/b> (Russia Today<\/b>)\u2014a network that reaches less than 30,000 people<\/a> per show, or roughly 0.3 percent of the ratings of Judge Judy<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Evidently, the topic of RT<\/b> needed more attention, since profiles in PBS<\/b><\/a>, Fortune<\/b><\/a>, Politico<\/b><\/a> (four<\/a> of<\/a> \u00a0them<\/a>), Time Magazine<\/b><\/a>, Washington Post<\/b><\/a> (half<\/a> dozen<\/a> or so<\/a>), Mediaite<\/b><\/a>, The Guardian<\/b><\/a>, Bloomberg<\/b><\/a>, Foreign Affairs<\/b><\/a>, Wall Street Journal<\/b><\/a>, Daily Beast<\/b><\/a>,<\/b> National Review<\/b><\/a>, Christian Science Monitor<\/b><\/a>, Slate<\/b><\/a>, Washington Times<\/b><\/a>, BuzzFeed<\/b><\/a>, New York Times<\/b><\/a> (another <\/i>Times<\/b> profile) and Huffington Post<\/b><\/a> were presumably not enough. The fact that there are millions more Americans reading profiles handwringing over RT<\/b> than actually watching it wouldn\u2019t stop intrepid media critic Jim Rutenberg from speaking truth to power…in another country.<\/p>\n

Stelter and Rutenberg would not respond to FAIR\u2019s request for comment. Wemple told FAIR, \u201cThere are hundreds of worthy and important stories that I don\u2019t get to.\u201d But for journalists covering US media in 2017, the prosecution of Cant\u00fa and Wood is not just another story: These are journalists facing decades in prison for doing exactly what journalists are supposed to be doing\u2014covering the opposition to an administration that establishment media reporters have been warning about since 2015.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/span>
\nThis piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission from FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For over two years, many in corporate media have been trumpeting the looming threat to a free press posed by Donald Trump. \u201cWould President Trump Kill Freedom of the Press?\u201d Slate (3\/14\/16) wondered in the midst of the primaries; after the election, the New York Times (1\/13\/17) warned of \u201cDonald Trump\u2019s Dangerous Attacks on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2521,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-327877","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}