Will Architect Of Trump's 'Rigged Media' Rants Denounce Threats Against Journalists?

Trump himself is mainly responsible for inspiring this ugly behavior by his supporters. But hatred of the media has been the right-wing Media Research Center's core belief for decades.
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.
WEST PALM BEACH, FL - OCTOBER 13: A man holds a sign towards the media as he attends a campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the South Florida Fair Expo Center on October 13, 2016 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Trump continues to campaign against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton with less than one month to Election Day. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
WEST PALM BEACH, FL - OCTOBER 13: A man holds a sign towards the media as he attends a campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the South Florida Fair Expo Center on October 13, 2016 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Trump continues to campaign against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton with less than one month to Election Day. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The disturbing stories are rolling in about ugly abuse and threats against the press by Donald Trump's supporters:

  • One reporter tells of a "mob mentality" against journalists at Trump rallies, adding, "The people who are shouting look at us like we're their immediate enemies, not as like . . . primarily late-20-to-early-30-somethings there to do a job." Reporters are now concealing or removing their press credentials when leaving the pen to avoid confrontations with Trump's supporters, and the atmosphere is particularly threatening to female reporters and to female TV reporters.

  • CNN's Sara Murray writes that "members of the media walk into an event like Trump's mid-October rally in Cincinnati, greeted by a crowd of thousands screaming at us about biased coverage and flipping us off." Murray cited another incident: "During the general election, we were at a stop in Florida when someone followed my producer to our car. When we left the event hours later, we discovered someone keyed our car on both sides."
  • The Washington Post notes that some Trump supporters are shouting "Lügenpresse" at journalists. The word, German for "lying press," was used during the Nazi era to smear journalists who opposed the Hitler regime.
  • Trump himself is mainly responsible for inspiring this ugly behavior by his supporters. But hatred of the media has been the right-wing Media Research Center's core belief for decades.

    That anti-media philosophy is the bedrock of the nasty rhetoric Trump aims in every speech at the journalists who cover him -- he's clearly drawing inspiration from the MRC's work -- and the MRC has responded in kind by enthusiastically endorsed and promoted Trump's "rigged media" tirades. MRC chief Brent Bozell even wrote a column last week headlined "Trump's Right: The Media Is Rigged," in which he makes the lazy, generalistic assertion that journalists are trying to "rig the elections in favor of the Democrats." (He has said nothing about the journalists who actually are trying to rig the election for Trump.)

    That means the MRC owns a piece of this escalating ugliness against journalists. Yet you won't see any mention of it on any MRC-run website.

    You'd think the MRC would want to try to turn down the heat a little -- if only for appearance's sake -- by telling Trump and his supporters to tone it down a bit. Or maybe Bozell and Co. aren't opposed to seeing acts of violence against journalists; perhaps they enjoy the mob mentality and condone the ugliness as a form of revenge against the bias they claim the media has perpetrated. After all, Trump is the biggest megaphone the MRC's anti-media message has ever had, and it's clearly loath to willingly give that up.

    But this much is obvious: If a Trump supporter goes too far and commits an act of violence against a journalist -- which seems sadly likely given the vehemence of the anti-media hate Trump has whipped up -- some of that blood will be on the MRC's hands.

    Bozell and his MRC have a choice here: Draw a line and warn against anti-journalist violence, or continue to ride the Trump train and put its message (and the fundraising that comes with it) first regardless of the seemingly inevitable consequences. Unfortunately so far, they have chosen the latter.

    Popular in the Community

    Close

    What's Hot