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Donald Trump’s confrontations with the media and journalists are a constant interaction that people have expected from his presidency.
He coined phrases like “Fake News” for his followers, and the more positive encouragement he received from those phrases, the more the attacks increased.
Press briefings have brought this behavior to the forefront of the public, as the president often reacts negatively and even resorts to personal attacks when questioned by journalists.
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But in recent months, daily press briefings on the coronavirus have brought to the center stage how Trump will treat the press when they challenge his administration, specifically his treatment of journalists and women of color.
A press conference held in the White House Rose Garden involved an interaction with Weijia Jiang, a Chinese-American journalist for CBS News, where the president told him to ask China instead of his own country about his reaction. to the coronavirus.
“Lord, why are you telling me that specifically? What should i ask china? she challenged the president. She then called her question “unpleasant” before turning to another journalist.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins was next to ask the president a question. But instead, he tried to prevent her from asking him for one and tried to pass on to someone else. After she pressed him, he abruptly ended the press conference.
Weijia Jiang, left, of CBS and Kaitlan Collins of CNN ask Donald Trump questions during a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House. After the exchange, the President abruptly ended the briefing and left (REUTERS)
Other interactions between the president and Ms. Jiang involved the president telling him to “keep your voice down” and to take it “nice and easy” with your questions.
Professor Ava Thompson Greenwell, Ph.D, from Northwestern Medill School of Journalism, said The independent These interactions between the president and journalists could be characterized not as microaggressions, but as micro-attacks.
“What it does is what we would call a micro attack. It is not subtle at all. It is direct, it is on your face, it is a scourge on the tongue, it is destined to cause damage. And that is the definition of a micro attack, ”he said.
Trump’s defense of interacting with the media the way he does is because they are “bogus” or asked “nasty questions.” But dealing with the media is what comes from being the leader of the United States, with the constitution that guarantees freedom of the press in the First Amendment.
‘There was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever’
Past presidents and those in power have experienced their own disputes with tough questions from the press, but Trump takes his attacks one step further by belittling and attacking the journalist personally.
Yamiche Alcindor of PBS, a black woman, was personally attacked during a coronavirus press conference for being “threatening” with her question line.
“That’s why you used to work for the Times and now you work for someone else,” Trump said, avoiding the question. “Be nice, don’t be threatening.”
“It shouldn’t be personal. It should always be about the product, but not about the person, “said Thompson Greenwell. “To say that someone doesn’t know what they are doing is really to stab the individual … Why focus on the person? You focus on the product.”
“I don’t think any of these journalists should be personally attacked. It is not legitimate to focus on the personality of that journalist and who they are as an individual, “he added.
The attacks on women journalists began when Trump first ran for the presidency. A confrontation with Megyn Kelly, who was working for Fox News at the time, became one of his first viral confrontations with a journalist when he had only been campaigning for months.
Ms. Kelly opened the Republican Party presidential debate in August 2015 by reading the cases where the now-president has publicly disparaged and degraded women by calling them “fat pigs,” “bums,” and “dogs.”
However, the president was ready for this line of questions and quickly responded by making a joke about comedian Rosie O’Donnell, whom she had publicly attacked multiple times on Twitter.
“For the record, it was way beyond Rosie O’Donnell,” Kelly said of the roars of audience laughter. “Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?”
He replied, “What I say is what I say.”
The following days showed the mistake Kelly made in Trump’s eyes by choosing to challenge him on how he spoke of women. He participated in multiple cable network shows to talk about the newscaster, even appearing to reference menstruation in a moment in an effort to discredit him question line.
Megyn Kelly at the Iowa Republican Presidential Candidate Debate – Photo Alex Wong / Getty Images (Getty)
“There was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her anywhere,” she told CNN.
In an interview with Fox News, Trump added: “I have no respect for Megyn Kelly. I don’t think she is very good at what she does. It’s very overrated. ”
Tweets he issued against Ms. Kelly also said that she “bombed” during the debate.
Commenting on a journalist’s appearances, referring to menstruation, and making other personality statements by choosing to attack them for doing their job, they all show misogynistic tendencies, said Elisa Lees Muñoz, executive director of the International Women’s Media Foundation. The independent.
“We know that he does not discriminate by gender with respect to his criticism and attacks, but we have particularly noted the way he attacks journalists and is a very gender attack, which really demonstrates some misogynistic trends that we see online and in streets every day, “he said.
The purpose of these attacks for Trump?
“It really is designed to silence them, to try to make them stop working, belittle, humiliate,” Muñoz added.
‘Be nice, don’t be threatening’
The President doesn’t just focus his attacks on women. White House male correspondents and political reporters also experience insults and attacks on their credibility when they challenge the president.
However, attacks on female correspondents tend to stand out more, as the White House press corps has historically been largely filled with white men.
“He persecutes journalists and he persecutes them with force. When he chases black women because their numbers are so few, he stands out more, “said Greenwell Thompson.
November 2018 showed multiple instances in which the President spoke to three different black journalists: CNN’s Abby Phillip, CNN’s April Ryan, and Alcindor.
During that period, the President criticized Ms. Phillip for her “stupid question,” called Ms. Ryan a “loser” who doesn’t know “what the hell is she doing,” and accused Ms. Alcindor of asking one. ” racist question. ”
“That really stood out to me because you had three black women and it seemed like every week I had a tongue that spanked them,” said Thompson Greenwell.
After Trump called Ms. Phillip’s question “stupid,” she appeared on CNN to discuss the treatment and what she has noticed from the president’s interactions with women journalists since the start of his presidency.
“It is part of a pattern and it is a very clear pattern that has been going on for years,” said Phillip. “He doesn’t seem to tolerate answering difficult questions, particularly from women … The president who makes assumptions about reporters based on their ethnicity is an employer here.”
Critics, including the president, have argued that journalists deserve Trump’s treatment of them because they sometimes skew their questions or the administration disagrees with a story. At the time of publication, the White House has not commented on Trump’s interactions with journalists when contacted by The independent.
“If President Trump spoke more about policies, initiatives, activities, if he answered questions professionally, then he would be more respected by the press,” said Muñoz.
He added that the president should “add some intellectual response and have a professional exchange” when he disagrees with the press instead of the personalized attacks.
There has been growing concern that rhetoric against journalists, specifically women journalists or those representing minority communities, could alienate people from staying or joining the professional field.
The International Women’s Media Foundation released a report that surveyed 597 women journalists and media workers in 2018. The report found that nearly two-thirds of respondents reported abuse, harassment, or threatening behavior online. Of those people, 40 percent said they avoided reporting certain stories for fear of abuse.
Almost a third of the women surveyed also considered leaving the profession due to cases of online harassment and abuse.
As a journalism teacher, Thompson Greenwell said she was concerned that attacks on the free press might inhibit the entry of potential journalists.
“My real concern for students, regardless of color or gender, is that they will choose not to participate in this business, particularly not to cover politics and not aspire to be White House correspondents,” he said. “That is a really elite group of journalists who can have an audience. My concern is that students who watch this over and over again just say, ‘I don’t want any part of it.’ ”
What the president does not realize is that the free press was not created as a third arm for the presidency. Your job is not to drive your achievements and ignore any failure reports.
He, like the presidents before him, has no control over the press as they work to get American citizens to report on administration-related information.
“Journalism is really the watchdog of our society,” said Muñoz, “and if you are driving the press away from press freedom, if you are taking measures that inhibit the way the press works … we are not going to get He replies that we need to have a totally free democracy. ”
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