The War on the Press Goes Back Decades

As is tradition, President Trump held a press conference at the White House after the midterm elections. CNN reporter Jim Acosta was called on to ask a question and after a back-and-forth, Acosta attempted to ask a follow-up question, refusing to hand over the microphone to a White House intern until he was acknowledged. 

The incident resulted in the White House pulling Acosta's press credential to enter the facility. The incident and subsequent action continued to raise the question of a free press under the Trump administration, where he has labeled the media as "fake news" and the "enemy of the people."

Jason Steinhauer, Director of the Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest, put this incident into historical perspective and said the attack on the press goes back to the mid-1900's. 

"President Trump's attacks on the mainstream media are a culmination, in many ways, of a particular strand of thought within the conservative politics that dates back decades. As early as the FDR administration, conservative intellectuals bemoaned the infiltration of the American media with perceived liberal biases. Conservative intellectuals such as William F. Buckley and Clarence Manion launched conservative media outlets and radio shows in the 1950s to counter this. The goal was to influence politics and public opinion through the press and correct perceived imbalance in American political discourse. The distrust and animosity in the mainstream press has been present ever since, and its intensity and anger has only grown from Nixon to Rush Limbaugh to the Tea Party and finally to the President. President Trump is an exclamation point on this long tradition. The President seems to combine this strand of thought with elements of President Nixon's paranoia, the manipulative nature of Vladimir Putin (whom he admires), and the rhetoric of a 1930's dictator such as Mussolini. It remains unclear if the President is fully cognizant of these traumatic historical memories he awakens when he launches into his polemics, or, if he is, whether he cares about the consequences.

"Paradoxically, mainstream media companies have benefited enormously from Trump’s ascendancy, Presidency, and fixation on the press. Just as the press needs Trump, Trump needs the press. The two need each other. In a democracy, a President cannot move his agenda forward without the tailwind of public opinion; and in the Internet era, a free press cannot engage its readership and viewership without a daily supply of compelling stories to tell."

To speak with Steinhauer, click his headshot above, email mediaexperts@villanova.edu or call 610-519-5152.