The promise made Monday by Donald Trump left many perplexed. In an interview with Fox News Digital, the next President of the United States assured that he would be “open and available” to the media, during his second term which will begin next January, and this, after months spent during his electoral campaign denigrating and questioning the legitimacy of several of them.
In the process, the future strong man of the White House took the opportunity to praise “a free, fair and open press and media”, something important, “even vital”, according to him, “to make its greatness to America.”
The declaration cultivates as much paradox as ambiguity for this politician who, far from preparing to protect freedom of the press, has rather announced for years his intention to settle scores with a part of the media class – those who verify the facts and faults the populist for his alternative realities and his lies.
This climate of revenge, coupled with the brutal defeat that the Republican imposed on the Democrats and the control he is preparing to have over the country’s institutions and ministries, now threatens one of the pillars of American democracy: the fourth estate.
“Donald Trump’s first term was a warm-up [en matière d’attaque contre les médias]commented a few months ago Frank Sesno, professor at George Washington University and expert on the American press, in the pages of Washington Post. A second term is going to be a wild ride. I expect a no holds barred approach. He could close the White House press office and expel journalists. There could be retaliation if you report critically on the president. »
In the hours following his consecration at the polls, on the night of November 5 to 6, the Republican set the tone. He took advantage of a speech usually used by candidates to welcome victory with humility and unity to instead maintain divisions by pointing the finger at the “enemy camp”, namely the CNN and MSNBC networks, according to him. During his first term, the press was described as “the enemy of the people”.
In the days leading up to the vote, Donald Trump also suggested, during a political rally in Pennsylvania, that he would “not be that bothered” to see members of the ” fake news », Trumpist vocabulary evoking non-servile media, placed in the line of sight of a shooter seeking to hit him again. This violent and hateful speech against the media followed numerous calls during his campaign to imprison journalists, revoke the broadcasting licenses of networks critical of him or take legal action against them.
A threat
“The imminent second term of [Donald] Trump represents a credible and unprecedented threat to press freedom as America has known it,” wrote Jon Allsop a few days ago, in the digital pages of the Columbia Journalism Review. A fear expressed by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in the hours following the election of Donald Trump, described as “a turning point for media freedom as an essential pillar of democracy”, he writes.
“The threats and lies against the media that have characterized much of the Republican Party’s presidential campaign represent a clear and direct danger,” CPJ Executive Director Jodie Ginsberg said in a statement. “At this crucial moment in U.S. history, we urge the next administration and government and businesses to recognize freedom of the press and fact-based reporting by journalists as an essential element of democracy, stability and public safety. »
However, the repressive regime seems to be slowly getting underway, according to the letters sent a few days before the election by Donald Trump’s lawyer, Edward Andrew Paltzik, to New York Times and to the publisher Penguin Random House. He is seeking $10 billion in damages for articles critical of the populist. This is the Columbia Journalism Review who revealed the thing last week.
On Sunday, the president-elect also appointed Brendan Carr to head the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a government body that Donald Trump threatens to use against those he portrays as his media opponents. During the campaign, he called on this agency to withdraw broadcasting rights from the NBC and CBS networks because of coverage that he considered biased in favor of Kamala Harris.
Brendan Carr, who serves on this Commission, is the author of the FCC chapter of Project 2025, the ultraconservative manual for a future Republican government. He also adheres to Trump’s promises to reduce regulations, but also to attack Silicon Valley companies and the media not participating in active construction subject to Trumpism.
“Starting next year, Trump’s assault on the press will intensify,” predicts journalist Kyle Paoletta in the pages of Columbia Journalism Review speaking of “attempting to stifle” negative reporting or allowing access to the “West Wing,” the epicenter of executive power in the White House, to only conservative media.
“Plans by Donald Trump and his allies to turn the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission against the media could lead to a series of investigations into leaks, the politicization of broadcast licenses and the potential indictment of journalists for espionage,” he continues. The scenario played out in authoritarian regimes like Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Narendra Modi’s India or Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, strong regimes regularly praised by Donald Trump. “Journalists covering the protests [contre le pouvoir] or immigration control will be taken into custody not only by local police, but also by the Department of Homeland Security. It is possible that Trump will even seek to obtain from Congress a reform of the laws on defamation to thus criminalize dissent, he continues.
And the future president will be able to do so in a climate of media distrust that he has skillfully maintained in recent years and which now offers him fertile ground because of the 49% of Americans who believe that the coverage of the electoral campaign was tendentious, of the 57% who believe that it was against Donald Trump, reports a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll unveiled Tuesday.
Worse, in the divided and constantly confrontational political context, verifying facts or shedding light on lies or half-truths is no longer perceived as a rigorous practice of journalism: 60% of respondents see it more as the defense of ‘a cause rather than impartial journalism, sums up the probe.
