No, Donald Trump is NOT Undermining a Free Press

By Howard Portnoy February 25, 2017

Earlier this week, MSNBC’s Mika Bzezinski accidentally told the truth on live TV. She said that Donald Trump could “undermine the media … messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that, that is our job.”

Her assertion that Trump is undermining the free press is not original. A Google search for the string “Trump undermining the free press” returns over a million links.  One of them is to an opinion piece in “Newsweek” published toward the end of December. The author is Robert Reich, secretary of labor under Bill Clinton and current political commentator at large.
In his article, Reich identifies four ways in which Trump is attempting to control the media:

1. Berate the media and turn the public against it
2. Limit media access
3. Threaten the media
4. Bypass the media and communicate with the public directly

As an example of the first bullet point, Reich writes, “Trump refers to journalists as ‘dishonest,’ ‘disgusting’ and ‘scum.’” Granted, the style of criticism may be harsh, even (perish the thought!) “unpresidential,” but is it unique to Trump?........To Read More.....