If there was ever any doubt that Reporters Without Borders had an agenda that went beyond simply fighting for the free press, that doubt has been erased by their actions during the era of President Trump.
This week, their World Press Freedom Index ranked the United States as 48th in the world when it comes to freedom of the press, despite the fact that we live in one of the – if not THE – most independent countries on the planet in terms of government criticism. You can literally say almost anything you want to about politicians, federal agencies, laws, and all the rest, and you can slap it right on the front page of The New York Times. It doesn’t even have to be true! But yeah, we’re just behind Romania when it comes to freedom of the press. Okay.
To justify this absurd ranking, RWB chronicled the incident at the Capital Gazette newspaper last summer, where a deranged lunatic killed four journalists in an act of revenge for a story they had once published about him. They then tried to link this incident to President Trump, which is the kind of fake news trick that is actually damaging the press in America.
“Amid one of the American journalism community’s darkest moments, President Trump continued to spout his notorious anti-press rhetoric, disparaging and attacking the media at a national level,” the report said. “Simultaneously, journalists across the country reported terrifying harassment and death threats, online and in person, that were particularly abusive toward women and journalists of color.”
If you didn’t know where this report was coming from before, the phrase “journalists of color” ought to clue you in.
President Trump has made a lot of noise about the media over the last three years, of that there can be no doubt. But frankly, he hasn’t given them back half as much guff as they’ve given him. This nation’s major newspapers have wasted so many forests on the fake Russian collusion scandal that they probably contributed more to global warming than all of the farting cows in India. He’s not entitled to point that out? He’s not justified in criticizing a biased, out-of-control, Democratic Party activist group in disguise. Please.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the press is free from criticism. Nowhere does it say that the President of the United States should refrain from calling it like he sees it. It certainly doesn’t say that jerkoff “journalists” like Jim Acosta can do their clown show on the White House floor without any repercussions.
The press is as free today as they have ever been. That the American people are beginning to spit up what they’ve been force-fed is interesting and encouraging, but it is certainly not a sign of freedom’s decline.
