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Comment by m0zg | Hacker News Reader

> Our current President repeatedly threatens journalists and the media with criminal punishment

Nope. He verifiably does not. The only time Trumps sued the press was when Melania sued Daily Mail for libel. Daily Mail lost and paid her $2.9M. https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/04/12/daily-mail-melania-tr...

If Trump sued for libel every time (which, IMO, he should, to provide some negative feedback to the system that's otherwise unstable), he'd put half the press in the country out of business by now.

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His attacks go beyond suing for libel. Suing for libel is pretty benign. Calling the media "the enemy of the people" is pretty bad.

https://cpj.org/reports/2020/04/trump-media-attacks-credibil...

But he does not "threaten journalists and the media with criminal punishment", which is what I was pointing out. And if we were to react to name calling, they've called him far worse.

That's a pretty low bar for the leader of the free world.

And an even lower bar for the "free press": to refrain from driving the country towards a full blown civil war to generate clickbait, and maybe even consider doing serious reporting again, for the first time in 20 years. Trump is not entirely wrong. The US press is full of radical propaganda at this point because it's good for "engagement". People have been radicalized because of it. People died because of it.

Trump actively milks it, witness his coziness with FOX and, when they weren't sufficiently sycophantic, OANN, which, while not being state-funded, comes as close as possible to the propaganda arm of the Trump government, and he actively encourages it.

So forgive us if we take "The press are the enemy of the people" from Trump with a grain of salt, when his sentiments are more accurately "The press that don't support me, the President, unequivocally and uncritically, are the enemy of the people".

Everything other than FOX and OANN are propaganda arms of the DNC though, and they are _actively lying_ to the people about literally everything, all the way to "austere religious scholars" and "revered military leaders". If you were only watching CNN you wouldn't even know there have been riots in Portland nearly every night for almost 4 months.

GP said "threatens", not "sues". Here are some results from searching "trump threatens journalist":

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48696131

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/m7jw5p/the-white-house-is...

Well, they apparently aren't taking his "threats" seriously then. Just watch any of his pressers, and compare it to those of Joe Biden. Oh, I forgot, Joe Biden doesn't have any pressers where questions aren't pre-approved in advance.

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