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

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'.