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Journalists
are not
the enemy

A central pillar of President Trump’s politics is a sustained assault on the free press. Journalists are not classified as fellow Americans, but rather “The enemy of the people.” This relentless assault on the free press has dangerous consequences. We asked editorial boards from around the country – liberal and conservative, large and small – to join us today to address this fundamental threat in their own words.

Replacing a free media with a state-run media has always been a first order of business for any corrupt regime taking over a country. Today in the United States we have a president who has created a mantra that members of the media who do not blatantly support the policies of the current U.S. administration are the “enemy of the people.” This is one of the many lies that have been thrown out by this president much like an old-time charlatan threw out “magic” dust or water on a hopeful crowd.

“The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom,” wrote John Adams.

For more than two centuries, this foundational American principle has protected journalists at home and served as a model for free nations abroad. Today it is under serious threat. And it sends an alarming signal to despots, from Ankara to Moscow, Beijing to Baghdad, that journalists can be treated as a domestic enemy.

More than 400 news outlets from around the country have joined our effort to support a free press. Scroll below to read them. We will be updating the list as more editorials are published.

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Long Beach
The Long Beach Post

The media as ‘your enemy’ is perhaps Trump’s biggest lie

Journalists report about your world, your nation, your state, your city on every level, sometimes as watchdogs when corruption, moral misdeeds and financial abuse occurs, and sometimes as cheerleaders when there are so many happy and heroic things to share with readers: triumphs and victories, moments of great inspiration and bravery.

Riverside
The Black Voice News

Enemy of The People Attacks, Not New

Her remarks, “The Requirements of Southern Journalism” was a call to action from a former member, “one of the journals which was a member of your organization has been silenced by the edict of the mob which declared there shall be no such thing as ‘Free Speech’ in the South.” She appealed to them in their role as independent watchdogs of the government, because the government refused to protect all its citizens. “The President of the United States announces himself unable to do anything to stay this ‘Reign of Terror,’ and the race in the localities in which these outrages occur are nearly always unable to protect themselves.”

Berkeley
The Daily Californian

Donald Trump’s ‘fake news’ rhetoric doesn’t just hurt professional journalists

Still, student journalists refuse to be silent — instead, they are reporting on these issues and putting an emphasis on the resources their universities need. Although these young writers are battling obstacles from their government both as students and as journalists, they continue to dedicate their time to publishing groundbreaking content.

San Francisco
Bay Area Reporter

Trump’s ‘fake news’ is fake news

Don’t fall for the clickbait on social media and don’t let the president define your reality for you. He says it’s “fake news” when media does not flatter him. We say be aware of news that affects you and your community, here, across the country, and around the world. Trump will continue calling media “fake news,” but that doesn’t mean it’s true.

Seaside
Monterey County Weekly

Free Speech

We launched this “Free Spech” feature right after Trump was elected. We weren’t so much clairvoyant of what was to come as proud of our place in a long history of people making a living utilizing the protections enshrined in the First Amendment.

San Diego
San Diego Union-Tribune

How we restore faith in journalism

Distrust is not easy to dismantle. But journalists at The San Diego Union-Tribune and nationwide will keep advocating for a free and fair press. With this president. And the next. And the next. And the next. And all who follow.

Eureka
The Times-Standard

No, the press is not Public Enemy No. 1

We run senior menus and back to school photos. Menacing the republic is not in our job descriptions. The downfall of America is not on our to-do list. We’re here to put out a newspaper and help keep our community informed.

Idyllwild
Idyllwild Town Crier

Fake news, American institutions and the presidency

Apart from our free press and the Electoral College, Trump has attacked the judicial branch of our government, our military and civilian intelligence communities, his own Department of Justice, the FBI — and even the NFL. Of course, he enjoys freedom of speech, but when he uses it to attack these established and treasured American institutions, he attacks our American way of life.

Coachella Valley
Coachella Valley Independent

Anger and Divisiveness Are the Enemy—Not the Free Press

I could go into details here about how this rhetoric is right out of the authoritarianism playbook. I could elaborate on how the news media is not one big, cohesive entity, but instead, many hundreds of publications with all sorts of different editorial philosophies and viewpoints, ranging from sharply liberal to staunchly conservative. I could go on and on … but I won’t. I’ll just again repeat: If we can’t communicate with each other, democracy doesn’t work.

Fresno
The Fresno Bee

The Fresno Bee is not the enemy. We are Americans, and Valley residents like you

President Trump, please stop calling the press “the enemy.” Disagree with us; call us slow-witted if we make an error. But don’t make us less than the Americans we truly are.

San Jose
San Jose Mercury News and the East Bay Times

Editorial: President Trump, we are not the nation’s enemy

We can’t sit here and be silent. The notion that we are the enemy fomenting division domestically and abroad is absurd.

Chico
Chico News & Review

Not the enemy

At this point, it would be easy to tune out the president’s constant rebukes—to trigger the internal “blah, blah, blah” button. But that would be normalizing his attacks, so resist the temptation.

Eureka
The North Coast Journal

Enough, Mr. President

These attacks, this vicious rhetoric, have created two very real dangers: Short-term, it increases the danger inherent in doing our job. Long-term and far more important, it undermines the very basis of our democracy.

Santa Rosa
The Press Democrat

Editorial: Enemies of the people? No, we’re your eyes and ears

Reporters shouldn’t be seeking approbation from politicians or government officials or anyone else they cover. But there’s more than a little irony when a man whose celebrity is rooted in the tabloid culture, and who tried to keep himself in the headlines by posing as his own publicist, cries “fake news.”

Stanford
The Stanford Daily

In our ‘post-truth era’ quest to defend journalistic principles, a look toward our predecessors

These claims of so-called “fake news” have undermined the very existence of a free press, eroding the credibility of reporting and making it increasingly difficult for smaller, local publications to flourish.

Colorado

Connecticut

Falls Village
Lakeville Journal and Millerton News

Perspective on truth, lies, respect and hate

Americans may not like the news they see or hear but they should not hold that against those who report it. In short, don’t shoot the messenger.

Hartford
Hartford Courant

Reporters As “The Enemy”? Take A Closer Look And You Decide

Is this really what the enemy looks like? Climbing creaky stairs in old town halls for 7 p.m. meetings. Sitting on folding chairs for hours. Writing stories on those meetings that same night. Getting up too early the next day to do it again.

Meriden
Record-Journal

Journalists are not the ‘enemy ’

Unable to carry on in the light, the president attempts to drag us all into a dark labyrinth where rules don’t apply and some vacant concept of winning seems attainable. This is the playground of “alternative facts .” But news organizations do not play in that dark playground.They perform in the light, and as such they are not the “enemy of the people” but precisely the opposite.

Willimantic
The Chronicle

Trump’s rhetoric hits all media hard

So when he continues to attack the press as a whole with almost demonic disdain without any proof of inaccuracies, he’s not hurting the feelings of journalists. They’re tough men and women. They can take it. What he’s doing is undermining democracy itself.

Darien
The Darien Times

There is nothing more American than a free press.

We are the enemy of governmental secrecy, of public self-servants and of lies — we are the enemy of absolute power seekers and the enemy of efforts to propogate an uninformed electorate so as to manipulate it. From the tiniest newspaper with no budget to an international journalistic powerhouse — we are the enemies of those who would seek to hide the truth from you.

New London
The Day

Uniting our voices in defense of a free press

Only information coming from the president or news and social media sites he deems worthy is acceptable.

Delaware

Florida

Jacksonville
Folio weekly

The King’s Speech

It is the enfant terrible of a king’s greatest hope that the people will rise against us media tyrants who hold his monarchy hostage, wielding our mighty pens of insistence to verify facts and tell objective truths, of analyzing and critiquing and speaking truth to power, of presenting a broad variety of views, so long as these be based in reality.

Wilton Manors
South Florida Gay News

The Most Dangerous Man in America is Still Donald Trump

The challenge today is for America’s free press to remain independent, not supplicant; to print real news, not government Pablum, whether you are the Wilton Manors Gazette or the Capital Gazette. We choose to question authority, not bow down to it.

Havana
The Herald

We are not the enemy of the people

When an elected leader refuses to answer our questions, he or she is, by proxy, refusing to answer your questions. The problem isn’t that they don’t want us to know, it is that they don’t want you to know. It is the American people, not the American press, that they hope to keep ignorant of their actions and words.

Sarasota
Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Freedom of press is under attack

Enough, President Trump: Don’t tread on us.

Jacksonville
Florida Times-Union

The war between Trump and news media must end

Even those who have little reason to defend Trump have found the media’s coverage excessive at times.

Daytona Beach
Daytona Beach News-Journal

Trump’s cynical effort to cast the press as ‘enemies’

“Fake News.” Trump wields that phrase like a bully with a truncheon.

Panama City
Panama City News-Herald

We are your defense

We believe good, fair, in-depth storytelling, moving the community forward, understanding each other, finding commonalities, moving past rumors and celebrating accomplishments while solving problems.

Ocala
Ocala Star-Banner

Nothing fake about our news

It is well to remember that one of the things that make America great is the fact that we grant the freedom of expression even to those, who, if they got their way, would deny those same freedoms to us.

Orlando
Orlando Sentinel

President Trump, the press isn’t the ‘enemy’ — it’s America’s watchdog

That is good news, indeed!

Tampa Bay
Tampa Bay Times

Strive to keep truth flowing for democracy

In such a toxic environment, Trump’s declarations undermine not just journalists and news organizations but the communities and democracy we endeavor to serve.

Lakeland
Lakeland Ledger

As Lincoln advised, this, too, shall pass

Remember, what power you give the president today will one day be possessed by a president you don’t like

Bradenton
Bradenton Herald

President Trump, we’re not ‘enemies of the people.’ End your war on our free press

Everywhere in the country, any matter that an official doesn’t want to talk about or that a reader doesn’t want to hear about is “fake news” now.

Melbourne
Florida Today

What our investigative journalists expose isn’t fake news

The reporters aren’t the enemy of the people. They pursue real stories intended to right wrongs and help the least among us.

Gainesville
Gainesville Sun

We’re not the enemy of the people

it is doubtful these words will make a difference to Trump or his most steadfast supporters.

Miami
Miami Herald

President Trump, we’re not ‘enemies of the people.’ End your war on our free press

We all — as citizens — have a stake in this fight, and the battle lines seem pretty clear. If one first comes successfully for the press as an “enemy of the American People,” what stops someone from coming next for your friends? Your family? Or you?

Palm Beach
Palm Beach Post

In defense of democracy’s defenders

In less flowery terms, the role of the press is to keep an eye on the henhouse.

Highlands County
Highlands News Sun

Bad for democracy

Calling our work fake news or the individuals who work here the enemy of the people is not a successful attack on the media. It is an attack on how our democracy works. This fake news rhetoric is an attack on the vision of our Founding Fathers. The enemy of the state rhetoric weakens our democratic notion of checks and balances for future generations.

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho