Himmelman was a Washington Post journalist who had at one point reported directly to Bob Woodward. In writing his biography of Ben Bradlee, who had been the executive editor of the Post from 1968 to 1991, he was given full access to Bradlee, with whom he had worked and studied for four years, as well as Bradlee’s personal papers. Bradlee, of course, had been treated as a press icon, most famously for his overseeing the publishing of the Pentagon Papers and the reporting on Watergate. Upon his death on October 21, 2014, Bradlee received lavish praise from the media class and many politicians, including President Barack Obama, for his courage and exceptionalism as a journalist and press executive. Obama issued a statement in which he said that “[t]he standard [Bradlee] set—a standard for honest, objective, meticulous reporting—encouraged so many others to enter the profession.”43
When Himmelman’s book was published, he was roundly criticized by Woodward and others in the press world because he dared to call into question Bradlee’s exceptionally close friendship with President John Kennedy and certain of Bradlee’s unethical journalistic practices when he was a correspondent for Newsweek covering Kennedy. From the time Kennedy was a senator, during his presidential campaign, and throughout his short presidency, Bradlee and his wife, with the exception of a few-month period, were close friends. They were neighbors before Kennedy moved into the White House. They had frequent private dinners, went to the movies, attended dances, etc. “The uniform perception is that most editors today would never allow a friend to cover a friend the way Ben covered Kennedy,” Himmelman writes.44 Let us hope not. But the converse should be true as well—that is, if a journalist has deep-seated antipathy for a public figure, such as CNN’s Jim Acosta or a host of other reporters for President Trump, they should never be allowed to cover that person, either.
Clearly, however, there is no such concern among editors today.
In the case of Kennedy and Bradlee, Himmelman recounts that “[i]n May of 1959, before Kennedy had officially announced his candidacy [for president], Ben covered a speech of Lyndon Johnson’s in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for Newsweek. At the time, Johnson was widely perceived to be one of Kennedy’s potential rivals for the Democratic nomination. Ben filed for Newsweek, but he also wrote a private, critical assessment of the speech in a ‘Memorandum for Sen. John F. Kennedy’ that definitely crosses the line between what a reporter should and shouldn’t do for a friend. (He never mentioned having written this memo in any of his books or interviews; I found it at the Kennedy Library.)”45
Himmelman continued: “After calling the speech ‘a masterpiece of corn,’ Ben deconstructs Johnson’s entire presentation: ‘My own response to Johnson is that, almost all other considerations aside, he could never make it. The image is poor. The accent hurts. . . . [H]e really does not have the requisite dignity. I watched closely. His personal mannerisms are destructive of the dignified image. He’s somebody’s gabby Texas cousin from Fort Worth.’ ”46
As an aside, one can imagine that this kind of attitude pervades and reflects present-day newsrooms respecting President Trump and his supporters. The evidence can be regularly seen and heard in daily news programs and commentaries, as described earlier.
Bradlee further advised Kennedy that “[f]or safety’s sake, I think your present assumption, that he is a candidate has to be the one. . . . The danger is, of course, not that he makes it or that he can hand his strength intact to anybody else. What is to be feared is that he will come to Los Angeles with a block of 300 or more delegates and hold them off the market for three or four ballots. . . . Not only do you have to advance steadily, but you have to do it in pretty big leaps. . . . This is the peril of Johnson. Every piece written that touts him as a candidate should, it seems to me, be read in this light rather than on its apparent face value. . . . He’s to be feared not as a potential winner but as a game-player who might try to maneuver you right out of the contest in Los Angeles.”47
Himmelman reassures the reader that “[f]or the most part, Ben stuck to being a reporter. Kennedy never gave Ben big scoops, particularly during the campaign, but he handed out tidbits.”48 But the fact is they were very close friends, as were their wives, as Himmelman explains throughout his book. And this undoubtedly affected Bradlee’s reporting and Newsweek’s coverage.
Indeed, Himmelman reports on “one of the sketchier episodes in their relationship,” when “[r]umors had been circulating for a while that Kennedy had been married once, before Jackie, and that he had gotten a quickie divorce. Untrue, evidently, but lingering—probably because of some of the widespread extra-curricular skinny-dipping that Kennedy was engaged in. Pierre Salinger, Kennedy’s press secretary, negotiated to have Ben come up to Newport, Rhode Island (where Jackie’s family had an enormous waterfront estate, Hammersmith Farm), to review FBI files that would prove that organizations spreading the rumors about Kennedy were shady themselves. This would discredit the opposition and advance a story line that the administration wanted to advance.”49
Kennedy shared FBI files with Bradlee about shady organizations he wanted to discredit. And there was more to Himmelman’s telling. “On top of that, the president demanded approval over anything that ran in Newsweek.” Bradlee and Newsweek complied. “ ‘This is a right all presidents covet,’ Ben wrote later, ‘but which they should normally not be given. This one time, the book seemed worth the candle, however, and we decided to strike the deal.’ ”50
In essence, Kennedy had editing control over the Bradlee-Newsweek story, which was intended to help Kennedy and involved Kennedy’s sharing of FBI information with them.
All of this was done in the shadows. And Bradlee was compliant.
At least the party-press of old was honest enough to identify themselves as partisans. And, for the most part, the public knew which newspaper stood with which party or candidate. Here, and throughout the modern media, the bias may usually be determined by the news-consuming public from the content put out by the newsroom. Of course, there are also those who, when watching “the news” or reading “the news,” take it at face value. And there are times when you simply cannot discern truth from fiction. But the newsrooms themselves do not transparently label or self-identify their partisanship or bias, enabling the public to weigh and filter what is being presented to it.
In fact, they protest when called out and claim that they are protecting freedom of the press against their critics. But are they? Or does the threat to press freedom lie with them?
FOUR
* * *
THE REAL THREAT TO PRESS FREEDOM
WHEN THINKING OF threats to freedom of the press, the usual scenario is of the government taking actions to intimidate or silence media organizations, journalists, etc. Today the American media insist they are under an unprecedented barrage of rhetorical criticism from President Donald Trump, and that his calling media factions “the enemy of the people” or “fake news” and using press events and political rallies to call out for criticism individual news organizations and individual reporters is a menace to freedom of the press. It is said that like no president before him, President Trump is using the language of a dictator and undermining the public’s respect for the press. Therefore, pushback by the media is not only warranted but essential, as they are defending the First Amendment and freedom of the press, whereas President Trump is endangering them.
So traumatized are the media by President Trump’s verbal bouts with them that, led by the Boston Globe, they organized a coordinated editorial response. “We are not the enemy of the people,” said Marjorie Pritchard, deputy managing editor for the Globe’s editorial page and a leader of the media campaign. “I hope it would educate readers to realize that an attack on the First Amendment is unacceptable. We are a free and independent press, it is one of the most sacred principles enshrined in the Constitution.”1
On August 15, 2018, “[m]ore than 300 newspapers around the nation joined together to each publish editorials that explained the role of journalists and amplified the p
ositive role journalism plays in society.”2 The editorial in the Boston Globe is illustrative. Titled “Journalists Are Not the Enemy,” it states, in part: “Replacing a free media with a state-run media has always been a first order of business for any corrupt regime taking over a country. Today in the United States we have a president who has created a mantra that members of the media who do not blatantly support the policies of the current U.S. administration are the ‘enemy of the people.’ This is one of the many lies that have been thrown out by this president, much like an old-time charlatan threw out ‘magic’ dust or water on a hopeful crowd.”3
Has President Trump advocated for “state-run media”? Ironically, the closest the United States comes to such official media are the Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio, but any effort to eliminate taxpayer subsidies for these broadcast outlets is strongly opposed by, among others, other media outlets. But President Trump has never endorsed state-run journalism.
Does the president demand that the media “blatantly support [his] policies”? This is an inaccurate characterization of his beef with the press. President Trump denounces what are often media-driven stories about such things as collusion with Russia, speculation about his mental health, gossip about his family members, predictions about indictments, demands for his impeachment, claims that he is a racist or white supremacist, charges of immigration internment camps, etc.
Indeed, on December 6, 2018, RealClearPolitics did an analysis of the media’s Trump coverage and concluded it was “obsessive.” “Since he rode down the Trump Tower escalator in June 2015, Donald Trump has loomed large over the media landscape. From the mail bomber to the Khashoggi slaying to Bush 41’s death, news outlets have organized their stories to emphasize Trump, while often undermining his legitimacy. In doing so, the press has devoted so much attention to him that he has in some ways helped revive American journalism. It turns out the media’s obsession with the president is greater than one might imagine.”4
For example, focusing on cable channels CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, RealClearPolitics found that “[w]hile Obama typically hovered around 3 percent to 5 percent airtime over most of his presidency, Trump’s steady state appears to be around 13 percent to 17 percent. In total from June 2009 to January 20, 2017, Obama averaged around 4.9 percent of the combined daily airtime of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. From June 16, 2015 to present, Trump has averaged 15 percent, three times as much.”5
Moreover, as reported by the Shorenstein Center on May 18, 2017, and referenced earlier, the center’s study found that “Trump’s attacks on the press have been aimed at what he calls the ‘mainstream media.’ Six of the seven U.S. outlets in our study—CBS, CNN, NBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post—are among those he’s attacked by name. All six portrayed Trump’s first 100 days in highly unfavorable terms.” Again, “Trump’s coverage during his first 100 days was not merely negative in overall terms. It was unfavorable on every dimension. There was not a single major topic where Trump’s coverage was more positive than negative.”6
President Trump is not demanding slavish media support for his policies. He is rightly acknowledging the overwhelmingly negative coverage he receives from an extremely hostile media. And much of that is due to the progressive ideological mindset of America’s newsrooms and their outrage over his electoral victory.
The Globe editorial further laments that “[t]here was once broad, bipartisan, intergenerational agreement in the United States that the press played this important role. Yet that view is no longer shared by many Americans. ‘The news media is the enemy of the American people,’ is a sentiment endorsed by 48 percent of Republicans surveyed this month by Ipsos polling firm. That poll is not an outlier. One published this week found 51 percent of Republicans considered the press ‘the enemy of the people rather than an important part of democracy.’ ”7
The Globe appears to conflate support for freedom of the press, which is a nonpartisan issue and undoubtedly embraced widely among Americans of all political stripes—especially Republican originalists and constitutionalists—with opposition by Republicans to the manner in which present-day journalists are almost single-mindedly and compulsively pursuing President Trump, his family, and his administration. More broadly, Republican objections relate to the modern view of news reporting—that is, the progressive ideological and partisan nature of reporting, rather than the principle of freedom of the press. Of course, the Globe editorial skirts this issue altogether, as it would require some level of self-evaluation and circumspection.
On September 5, 2018, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press released a survey that found, among other things, that “95 percent of voters agree on the importance of having a free press.”8 “According to the survey, 56 percent of voters say they value the national news media most for its role in keeping citizens informed.” However, “[p]erceived bias in reporting is a top concern, with 55 percent of both Republicans and Independents citing journalists ‘filtering all the news with their own political opinions’ as one of their biggest doubts about the national news media. Democrats are more concerned about sensationalizing news stories, with 52 percent citing it as their largest doubt.”9
Unlike the Globe and the more than three hundred other newspaper editorials, the survey also found that “[a] majority of voters, 52 percent, said they did not see press freedom as under threat—a lack of perceived risk that was even higher among some when viewed through a partisan lens: 66 percent of Republicans and 56 percent of Independents said they perceived little or no threat to the press, while just 38 percent of Democrats gave the same response.”10
Could it be that the public is right and the media are wrong? Is President Trump’s criticism of press coverage an existential threat to freedom of the press? Of course not. However, there are numerous examples of past presidents taking governmental actions that did, in fact, suppress press freedom. The Globe editorial ignored these past presidential acts, for to acknowledge them would provide context for the reader and undermine the newspaper’s entire proposition and anti-Trump campaign.
Interestingly, the Globe editorial highlights a quote from founder John Adams: “The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom.”11 Yet, incongruously and intentionally, it expurgates by omission President Adams’s grievous attack on press freedom.
Not long after the nation’s founding, President Adams and his Federalist Party instituted the Sedition Act of 1798. As Richard Buel Jr. of Wesleyan University explained: “Men in the thick of a revolution may well be forgiven if they sacrifice principles to the needs of a desperate moment. But the events of the late 1790s cannot be so explained. Less than ten years after framing the First Amendment, Congress passed [and President Adams signed] the sedition law. . . .”12 It made illegal the following: “To write, print, utter or publish, or cause it to be done, or assist in it, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either House of Congress, or the President, with intent to defame, or bring either into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against either the hatred of the people of the United States, or to stir up sedition, or to excite unlawful combinations against the government, or to resist it, or to aid or encourage hostile designs of foreign nations.”13
“Armed with this statute,” Buel writes, “the secretary of state, Timothy Pickering, proceeded to launch a systematic attack on the major opposition presses, clearly with the design of silencing them during the election of 1800. In addition, several Republican printers in the states with Federalist-controlled judicial systems were prosecuted under the common law. No one could seriously have doubted that these prosecutions represented a deliberate attempt to muzzle the Republican presses. Nevertheless, Federalists maintained that nothing, either in the sedition law or its administration, was inconsistent with the First Amendment, and that the law actually expanded the freedom of publishers by liberalizing the common law of libels. The Revoluti
onaries had an explanation for the apparent conflict between their words and deeds. None had ever denied that the press could abuse its privileges and that such abuse should be restrained.”14
The Adams administration actually prosecuted more than two dozen individuals, including journalists Thomas Cooper, editor of the North Cumberland Gazette in Pennsylvania; James Callender, a writer with the Richmond Examiner in Virginia; and Charles Holt, editor of the New London Bee in Connecticut—all of whom were fined and served prison sentences, and all of whom were more sympathetic to the Jeffersonian-Republican cause.15
Among other things, Adams and his party, witnesses to the bloody French Revolution and the ensuing decade-long upheaval of that society, claimed the sedition law would not prevent legitimate criticism of the government and the exercise of press freedom, but would restrain lies from various factions and groups aimed at delegitimizing democratic rule. The Jeffersonian Republicans countered that “political criticism necessarily contained opinion as well as fact, and that no jury could determine the truth or falsehood of an opinion. . . .” Moreover, various state laws provided recourse for seditious libel.16
With Thomas Jefferson’s victory in 1800, and his more libertarian beliefs, as well as the Republican takeover of Congress, the Sedition Act would die and freedom of the press would be honored. “Despite extraordinary provocations, the Republicans never responded as the Federalists had in the analogous circumstances of the late 1790s.”17
Decades later, during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans were dealing with the gravest threat to the republic since its founding—a war over secession and slavery that engulfed the country, eventually resulting in more than 700,000 casualties.
Historian Harold Holzer noted that “[f]ollowing the [first] Bull Run [disaster], the administration turned its attention not only to forging weaponry and raising more troops, but also to quelling home-front newspaper criticism that the president, his cabinet advisors, and, more surprisingly, many Northern newspaper editors believed was morphing from tolerable dissent into nation-threatening treason.” The Lincoln administration believed that in the case of “an unprecedented rebellion, and under the powers the president had claimed in order to crush it, military necessity superseded constitutional protection. . . . Based on this argument, the administration began conducting—or, when it occurred spontaneously, tolerating—repressive actions against opposition newspapers.”18
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