Opinion: Precarious world for press freedom
By John Diaz, San Francisco Chronicle
The practice of journalism has rarely been more critical — or at greater risk — in the United States. Never before has a president of this nation so aggressively attempted to delegitimize and even threaten established news organizations that produce stories that undermine the narrative he is trying to create.
Public distrust of the media did not begin with the election of Donald Trump, but his constant drumbeat of “fake news” and claims of fabrication have only galvanized it.
Yet through the fog of Trump’s rhetorical war, several national news organizations — most notably the Washington Post and New York Times — have been doing a great public service with their investigative reporting of the allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election and the many false statements from the Trump White House. If left to the dispatches issued from Trump and his surrogates, Americans would be under the mistaken impression that his son Donald Jr.’s summer 2016 meeting with the Russians was all about adoptions, millions of people voted illegally in 2016, the U.S. murder rate was the highest it’s been in nearly a half century, and his inauguration crowd was the largest in history.