Around the globe, public figures and political leaders who lob insults at the media and vilify journalists may score political points, but they also create a divisive environment ripe for attacks on press freedom.
The following in an excerpt of a CPJ blog post by Alexandra Ellerbeck, CPJ Americas Research Associate:
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has called the mainstream media “crooked” “unfair” “troublemakers” and The New York Times a failing, “SAD!” newspaper “full of boring lies.” Individual reporters are “liars” and “bimbos,” according to his tweets.
Recently, reporter Julia Ioffe found herself at odds with the Trump campaign after she wrote a profile of the candidate’s wife, Melania Trump. Within 24 hours, she picked up her phone to a recording of a Hitler speech, part of a wave of anti-Semitic messages targeted at the journalist, whose family fled to America to escape anti-Semitism in Russia 26 years ago. Other female journalists at odds with the campaign have found themselves in the crosshairs; Trump’s insults against Megyn Kelly and Michelle Fields galvanized online trolls to send thousands of hateful and misogynistic messages, according to reports and analysis by digital news outlet Vocativ.
Read the full post on CPJ’s site.
