Thursday, February 23, 2017
It's the media’s job to be adversarial toward government but, President Trump doesn’t see it that way. He says the media are "the enemy of the American People." Mike Collins talks with a former White House correspondent about the president's comments and behavior toward the press.
President Trump has made no bones about his loathing of the press, going back to the campaign when he would single out the press corps for jeers at rallies. In a rambling White House news conference last week, the president told reporters “the public doesn’t believe you people anymore” and accused them of peddling “fake news” about the administration’s contacts with Russia.
Over the weekend, Trump turned up the temperature, tweeting that major news outlets were “the enemy of the American People.” Even Fox News host Chris Wallace warned that comment “crosses an important line.” The comment was evocative of Richard Nixon, who also referred to the press as “the enemy.”
Is this the normal give-and-take between the presidency and the press? Or is this hostility something new entirely? Have the media lost credibility with the public?
GUESTS
Charles Bierbauer, dean of the University of South Carolina College of Information and Communication; former CNN White House correspondent (@cjbsc)
Ryan Thornburg, associate professor, University of North Carolina School of Media and Journalism (@rtburg)