TRUMP REPORTING MUST STOP

Recently, Trump gave an interview to Washington Post, so I feel he realized the mistake but I still feel that the press ignoring what happened is another sign of the malaise in our journalism and lack of cohesion and unity.

Hillary deleted 30,000 emails. That behavior is suspicious and makes us all, Democrat, Independent and Republican wonder what was in those emails. However, the important thing is that we know it happened and we know because major news media reported it. It is a fact that many choose to forget that everything we know, we know for the most part because it was picked up by a major news sources and reported to us. Reporters don’t have to make time for it, there are a lot of things to report but they spent time and energy and thus money to tell us, inform us, makes us better aware of the choice at hand. This is why the first amendment is so important, the freedom of speech is ability to think and speak. Freedom of press is ability for us to see and hear and thus to know which is necessary for speech. The prohibition of the government from stopping the press from telling us what is happening is at the heart of democracy to make the right decisions. To stop us from hearing what is happening is to prevent us from having the freedom to know and thus from being able to decide. It prevents us from voting as an informed public and that prevents us from being free. It destroys the democracy and democratic process at its core.

Donald Trump has taken that freedom away from us. By preventing Washington Post, regardless of his reasons, he prevents a news organization from seeing and telling us what happens. This means that he sent a message to all news organizations that if you want to be at his rally, you cannot write the truth, you can only write that which will make Trump look good, and that is not truth. That is a lie because a half truth is still a lie.

Hillary may not like us knowing about the 33,000 emails and she may try to hide it because being a politician means making mistakes and having all see them is embarrassing and sometimes career ending. However, what she does not do is prevent anyone from reporting on those facts. She does not prevent Americans who work as reporters from doing their job and telling the rest of America what she is doing. On the other hand Trump is engaging in preventing reporters from reporting, and that is by definition a dictatorship: when a man of power controls what we as the population hear, see and thus know.

Trump doing this to one organization implies he will do it to others; like a cheater, if he cheats once, he will cheat twice. A person who does not respect the press, does not respect our American right and freedom to hear and know and decide for ourselves. If he feels that he can get away with a ban on one organization, he will do so with others. But he doesn’t even have to, by banning Washington Post he has done it to all. You can bet your money that the information coming out of other news sources is no longer a true reflection of what they see and hear, thus what we know as citizens of this country, deciding on the person who is running for the most powerful office in this country, the office that decides whether to go to war or not, determining who in this country lives and who dies, that decision is no longer free and fair because we no longer know what he thinks, does or says.

The media has a responsibility, they cannot allow the entire press to be bullied this way. A shot across the bow must be made. An attack on one must be treated as an attack on all, because it is. Responsible media should block all information about Trump from now and not resume until he allows Washington Post back in. They must do so because to continue otherwise, is a sham. To get incomplete information is as good as getting no information.

If we value our democratic process, if we value this democracy if we value the integrity of the press and our ability to know the truth, the reporting MUST STOP.

They must do so, because Trump relies on them to get the word out about himself and his campaign. He has been using the media to his advantage financially and politically. Because of his reliance on the news megaphone he has had to spend zero dollars on ads because the media continues to give him free air time. Every time he makes a vulgar or inappropriate remark, his message, name and image is spread across the country, drawing more support from all who would agree with him with the efficiency far greater than any 30 second ad. The news talk shows speak about him for 30–60–90 minutes while columnists write columns about Trump with words stretching into eternity, etching his image into the minds of millions of Americans, drowning out all other candidates. This free-riding cannot go on if he breaks the social contract of reporting against him which he does not like. If we value our democratic process, if we value this democracy if we value the integrity of the press and our ability to know the truth, the reporting MUST STOP.

We at Phittle take an oath to not repost a single story about Trump, until he ends his unethical and un-American blockade on Washington Post. If he thinks he can control what the citizens see, then we will show that so can we.

Republished from https://www.phittle.com/en/blog/trump-reporting-must-stop/

Phittle is a start-up in San Diego developing a way for public to buy premium news without subscriptions.