President Donald Trump’s supporters are taking his attacks on journalism to a whole new level by trying to raise money to “investigate” individual reporters so that they can persecute them.
We all know that Trump and his allies frequently target news outlets that tell the truth about him such as CNN and the Washington Post. Trump has even gone so far as to label them the “enemy of the people” and has openly threatened to shut them down, a move that would make his effort to become an authoritarian dictator complete as the First Amendment’s freedom of the press falls.
Well, Trump’s supporters are now taking their cue from him to begin their own witch hunt against individual reporters.
According to Axios:
This group will target reporters and editors, while other GOP 2020 entities go after the social media platforms, alleging bias, officials tell us.
The group claims it will slip damaging information about reporters and editors to “friendly media outlets,” such as Breitbart, and traditional media, if possible.
People involved in raising the funds include GOP consultant Arthur Schwartz and the “loose network” that the N.Y. Times reported last week is targeting journalists. The operations are to be run by undisclosed others.
The prospectus for the new project says it’s “targeting the people producing the news.”
In a three-page fundraising pitch, the group specifically named news outlets they consider hostile to Trump and states that they intend to “track” reporters.
“CNN, MSNBC, all broadcast networks, NY Times, Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, and all others that routinely incorporate bias and misinformation in to their coverage,” the group wrote. “We will also track the reporters and editors of these organizations.”
Fact-checking organizations already keep track of what media outlets report. But what this group of Trump supporters wants to do is insidious. They want to dig into the lives of individual journalists in an effort to embarrass them into submitting to their will. Basically, remain silent about Trump if you don’t want personal or sensitive information to go public. It’s that simple and it’s a threat to democracy and journalism.
And you can bet that Trump will only encourage these efforts.
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