In recent days, President Donald Trump attacked a reporter, and one of his appointees went after a news organization.
Both were attacks on journalism, but they had very different outcomes. And the difference shows how the administration has succeeded at undermining freedom of the press.
After CNN correspondent Kristen Holmes asked the president a question he didn’t like, he responded by repeatedly ordering her to be quiet, calling her a “fake reporter” and attacking her for being “loud” and “boisterous.” The official White House rapid response account then escalated the attack, calling her a disgrace and saying that her children will be “sickened and embarrassed” by her.
It was gross but hardly surprising. Trump has reserved some of his most demeaning treatment for women in journalism. He told April Ryan to sit down, and he called a question from Abby Phillip stupid and another from Yamiche Alcindor racist. He called Rachel Scott rude and nasty, called ABC’s Mary Bruce a terrible person, criticized Kaitlan Collins for not smiling and repeatedly demeaned Maggie Haberman.
But as with the others, there was no sign that Holmes has let the incident affect her professional approach. She has continued to quietly do her job, leaving it to her colleagues and peers to criticize the White House’s personal attack for crossing the line.
One day after the attack on Holmes, ABC and Disney sued the Federal Communications Commission, alleging that the administration is using its licensing authority to retaliate against coverage and programming the president dislikes. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has denied infringing on Disney’s free-speech rights.
According to the lawsuit, the FCC ordered an early review of eight ABC-owned stations whose licenses were not set to expire until between 2028 and 2031. The agency made approximately 600 requests for information, producing 13,000 pages of documents.
But the most extraordinary part of the filing was what ABC admitted in writing. The network said the threat to its stations’ licenses is affecting editorial decisions across ABC since it cannot afford to “ignore the consequences of any decision that might anger the Administration or the FCC Chairman.” ABC said it “must now evaluate any invitation to a political candidate for its potential consequences” and has become “more circumspect” about booking candidates on “The View” or airing video clips on its shows that might count as appearances.
The pressure has affected other decisions, too. ABC said it considered the possibility of administration retaliation when deciding how to carry a recent presidential speech on election security.
ABC acknowledged that fear of government punishment is now part of its editorial calculation.
Think about what ABC acknowledged: Fear of government punishment is now part of its editorial calculation. That is the point. The most effective censorship may be the censorship no official ever has to order. It happens when a newsroom anticipates punishment and adjusts accordingly.
On this week’s episode of “Clock It,” the podcast Eugene Daniels and I co-host, Eugene described what happened when he led the White House Correspondents’ Association from 2024 to 2025. After the administration kicked The Associated Press out of the press pool, he asked major news organizations to sign a short statement of support. Some refused.
“I don’t want to have a target on my back,” they told him. “We don’t want, as an organization, to have a target on our back.”
I asked him, “What happened to without fear or favor?”
“Well, there’s a lot of fear,” he said. “With the news leadership. It is not within the press corps.”
Eugene’s distinction matters. Reporters are still doing their jobs, finding sources, asking tough questions and breaking news. Their employers are not as fearless, though, and that’s where the real threat to the free press comes into play. We should praise ABC and Disney for filing the lawsuit, and for their candor in admitting that they were influenced by the pressure campaign, but we should also demand more.
Every time government pressure produces silence, it teaches this administration and the next one what works. Every time a newsroom decides that avoiding a target is more important than defending its journalists, the boundary moves. And every time an outlet resists, backs its people and keeps reporting, it draws a different line.
So what can we do? Support the outlets that defend their journalists and are willing to fight for the public’s right to know. Read them. Watch them. Subscribe to them. And when a news organization capitulates, do not confuse that moment of weakness with neutrality or reward it with your trust.
We also have to refuse to treat this as an inside fight between the president and the press, or decide whether press freedom matters based on whether we like the reporter or the network being targeted. You do not have to agree with every story or admire every journalist to understand the principle that they should not be targeted over it. A government powerful enough to silence a journalist you dislike is powerful enough to silence one you trust.
We may never know is how many other news organizations are making similar calculations.
ABC has now shown us some of what happened behind closed doors at its network. What we may never know is how many other news organizations are making similar calculations: how many reporters were discouraged from asking a question, how many producers decided against booking a guest or how many stories were softened or shelved because executives feared retaliation.
Trump will not be president forever. Trumpism may outlast him, but things will change. What we cannot do is expect them to go back to normal, because there is no old normal waiting for us when he leaves. We are creating the next normal right now.
That is why the choices news organizations and their leaders make in this moment matter beyond a single news cycle or lawsuit.
Evan Brechtel contributed to this report.
For more thought-provoking insights from Michael Steele, Symone Sanders Townsend and Luke Russert, watch “The Weeknight” every Monday-Friday at 7 p.m. ET on MS NOW.
The post Trump’s attack on a journalist overshadowed a more effective threat to freedom of the press appeared first on MS NOW.
Author: Source Author
From MS Now.
Leave a Reply