Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Dear President Trump,

 

As journalists and founders of a network of media professionals in over 180 countries, we are seriously concerned with your attacks on the news media and your disregard for the truth itself. Your attempt to discredit legitimate media organizations, as well as the barring of media companies from your press conferences last week, are an insult to our esteemed colleagues who risk their lives every day to report the truth, and to the United States Constitution you took an oath to defend.

 

Attacking the news media with a broad brush and attempting to delegitimize media outlets critical of the government is exactly how Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Putin began their presidencies. It was the first step they took in weakening democracy in Venezuela and Russia. By driving a wedge between the people and the media, and by using the power of the presidency to intimidate journalists, these leaders built corrupt, authoritarian regimes with few checks on their power and limited recourse against human rights violations.

 

Thanks to our Constitution, our deep cultural tradition of press freedom, and the surging desire of the American people to access quality journalism, those tactics will not work in the United States....