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> This anti-press stuff started with Trump. * gestures vaguely in the direction of Richard Nixon, waits for historians to chime in with earlier examples.

nostrademons 5y ago
I'll leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_States#Colonial_government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_State...
kasey_junk 5y ago
If ‘kizer had said “was extremely increased” by Trump it would be an accurate statement. It’s frankly one of the planks of the shadow platform of the Trump Republican Party that journalists are enemies.
krapp 5y ago
Trump literally called the press the enemy of the people. Traditionally, that's the sort of rhetoric a leader uses when they're about to send out the hit squads.
- WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
  Everyone is kind of right here. I'd phrase it this way. R administrations expand the attacks on journalists (and everyone who exposes Gov wrongdoing) that were done by previous D administrations. Trump's method to reduce accountability was to nurture animosity specifically against journalism. Behind the scenes, his admin's revenge on whistleblowers carried on pretty much the same as his predecessors. My long position is that US press coverage has been continually (but not exclusively) deferential to authoritarianism. We see that US coverage of unconstitutional executive domestic actions is often nonexistent, until whistleblowers drag news orgs into doing their jobs (Mark Klein's evidence of NSA+AT&T collusion wasn't enough to overcome the giant press yawn. Snowden's mountain of evidence was impossible to ignore.) The US press is somewhat better at covering the misdeeds of R administrations than of D administrations (eg: US coverage of Holder's efforts to target journalists was muted, at best.) The difference is primarily a matter of competence. We've proven repeatedly that focusing on bias instead of ineptitude just leads to the 'view from nowhere'.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Richard Nixon There's a case that Spiro (“nattering nabobs of negativism”) Agnew is a better Nixon-era example than Nixon himself, not that it started then, either.
woodruffw 5y ago
I highly recommend The Boys on the Bus by Timothy Crouse[1] for some fantastic contemporaneous analysis of Richard Nixon and his relationship with the press. One part that stood out to me: Crouse believes (and presents compelling evidence) that Nixon was one of the first presidents to really understand the press, particularly the press of the nascent information age. Goldwater and Agnew were of the more reactionary anti-press strain, as other commenters have noted; Nixon (per Crouse) genuinely loved the press (if not reporters themselves) and relished in his control over it. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_on_the_Bus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_on_the_Bus

nostrademons 5y ago

I'll leave this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_States#Colonial_government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_State...

kasey_junk 5y ago

If ‘kizer had said “was extremely increased” by Trump it would be an accurate statement. It’s frankly one of the planks of the shadow platform of the Trump Republican Party that journalists are enemies.

krapp 5y ago

Trump literally called the press the enemy of the people. Traditionally, that's the sort of rhetoric a leader uses when they're about to send out the hit squads.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
Everyone is kind of right here. I'd phrase it this way. R administrations expand the attacks on journalists (and everyone who exposes Gov wrongdoing) that were done by previous D administrations. Trump's method to reduce accountability was to nurture animosity specifically against journalism. Behind the scenes, his admin's revenge on whistleblowers carried on pretty much the same as his predecessors. My long position is that US press coverage has been continually (but not exclusively) deferential to authoritarianism. We see that US coverage of unconstitutional executive domestic actions is often nonexistent, until whistleblowers drag news orgs into doing their jobs (Mark Klein's evidence of NSA+AT&T collusion wasn't enough to overcome the giant press yawn. Snowden's mountain of evidence was impossible to ignore.) The US press is somewhat better at covering the misdeeds of R administrations than of D administrations (eg: US coverage of Holder's efforts to target journalists was muted, at best.) The difference is primarily a matter of competence. We've proven repeatedly that focusing on bias instead of ineptitude just leads to the 'view from nowhere'.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Richard Nixon There's a case that Spiro (“nattering nabobs of negativism”) Agnew is a better Nixon-era example than Nixon himself, not that it started then, either.

woodruffw 5y ago

I highly recommend The Boys on the Bus by Timothy Crouse[1] for some fantastic contemporaneous analysis of Richard Nixon and his relationship with the press. One part that stood out to me: Crouse believes (and presents compelling evidence) that Nixon was one of the first presidents to really understand the press, particularly the press of the nascent information age. Goldwater and Agnew were of the more reactionary anti-press strain, as other commenters have noted; Nixon (per Crouse) genuinely loved the press (if not reporters themselves) and relished in his control over it. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_on_the_Bus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_on_the_Bus