Former Bill Clinton cabinet member Robert Reich lists seven ways President-elect Donald Trump strives to control the press, including berating the press, blacklisting critical news outlets, threatening libel suits, and limiting access. (Chicago Sun-Times, November 29, 2016)
Emily Bazelon cites Trump’s history of suing the media and recent wealthy men’s libel suits in a cautionary article about the prospects for the press in the Trump era. Last week Breitbart, a news network that campaigned for Trump during the election, announced it was going to launch a libel suit against a major media company for calling it a “White nationalist” website. “Even if Breitbart is bluffing,” writes Bazelon, “the threat will discourage other news outlets from using that term to describe it, and that will in turn help Breitbart and Bannon seem more acceptable to the mainstream. Trump was right about one thing: You don’t have to win every case to advance in the larger legal war.” (The New York Times Magazine, November 27, 2016)
Trump told New York Times journalists that they would be happy about his stance on the First Amendment, and when in Congress Mike Pence co-sponsored a shield law stating it was necessary to support a free press to enable citizens to make intelligent decisions. (The New York Times, November 22, 2016, by David Leonhardt)