When President Donald Trump called the U.S. news media "the enemy of the American People" and brandished the moniker "fake news" at reports he didn't like, tyrants everywhere perked up. They heard the president say exactly what they have been saying about nettlesome journalists who expose human rights abuses, corruption and rigged elections. Trump's remarks have a ripple effect.
Cambodia, which last year sentenced a man to 18 months in prison for a Facebook post, was one of the first to seize upon Trump's approach. A government spokesman, noting how the White House had barred several U.S. outlets from a briefing, warned Radio Free Asia and Voice of America about their news coverage, which is quite straightforward and therefore threatening to the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen. The spokesman declared, "Freedom of expression is subject to law and must respect the state's power."
Respect of state power and the ruling Communist Party is also what China demands in no uncertain terms from its news media. China's propagandists have started to mimic Trump's methods in news articles. The party's leading newspaper, People's Daily, denounced Western news coverage of a Chinese lawyer and human rights advocate who said he had been tortured by splashing a photograph with the words "FAKE NEWS." The paper said it was "fabricated to tarnish China's image."
Trump has a personally contradictory relationship with the news media. He has long hungered for favorable coverage. But he appears to see the news media in strictly promotional terms, not as a mechanism of democracy to probe and criticize.
His behavior has global consequences. The press would not be free in Cambodia, China or Russia if a different U.S. president had been elected. But the United States has a long tradition of speaking out against crackdowns on the news media, and sometimes those interventions make a difference. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says that "American foreign policy must promote our core values of freedom, democracy and stability." Does the president agree?
Editorial on 03/10/2017