Dr. John Lott has a new piece at the Daily Caller on the responsibility that the media has in encouraging attacks against them. The piece starts this way:
Remember when President Obama accused Fox News of promoting a “destructive” viewpoint or said that his administration didn’t need to “pretend” that Fox is a “legitimate news organization.”
The Obama administration even spied on Fox News reporter James Rosen. Or how Obama generally refused to take questions from Fox News reporters at press conferences.
Obama’s White House communications director Anita Dunn even claimed, “Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.” And on and on it went.
Democrats (and the mainstream media) acted like it was Fox News’ fault for being in Obama’s crosshairs.
Was Obama encouraging violence against Fox News or other news organizations?
How are Obama’s comments such as Fox News being “destructive” to the country different than President Trump saying that “Fake News” is the “enemy of the people”?
Yet, the media’s dire warnings about Trump in just the last couple of weeks could almost fill an entire book.
Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s “Meet The Press,” argued that by getting the crowd at one of his rallies riled up against CNN, Trump was engendering possible violence. Todd reminded viewers of an incident last year when a white supremacist used his car to run over a protester in Charlottesville, Virginia.
On Sunday morning’s show, Todd claimed that Trump made violence against the press “easier to rationalize.”
The New York Times’ Bret Stephens even wrote a piece titled: “Trump will have Blood on His Hands.”
Talking about Trump, MSNBC’s Katy Tur said, “Yeah, we get it, you don’t like us. Fine. But do you have to put our lives in danger?”
“I warned that this inflammatory language [by Trump] is contributing to a rise in threats against journalists and will lead to violence,” said New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger.
CNN’s Jim Acosta echoed that warning: “I’m very worried that the hostility whipped up by Trump and some in the conservative media will result in somebody getting hurt.”
After the Capital Gazette shooting in Annapolis, Maryland, in June, press members and Democrat campaign officials were quick to blame it on Trump’s bashing of “fake news,” which he called the “enemy of the people.” Apologies weren’t forthcoming after police declared the shooting a “targeted attack.” The killer had a long, troubled relationship with the paper, which he had sued for defamation over a July 2011 column.
“This behavior happens in authoritarian societies, where leaders and supporters are pushing down people and the media protests,” claimed CNN’s Jen Psaki. The New York Times’ Mark Landler linked Trump’s language “to Stalin, to Mao, to Lenin … totalitarian societies.” . . .
The rest of the piece is available here.
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