"Going back to the 2014 Ferguson riots, over a dozen journalists were arrested and had tear gas or projectiles fired on them by police. The big issue here is the militarization of police. That's the real systemic issue and that's been building for two decades now. The fact that the Defense Department literally sells this equipment made for war to local police."
53 journalists were killed worldwide in 2018, according to a new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
From January 1 to Dec. 14, 2018, 34 journalists were killed in retaliation for their articles and investigative reporting, nearly double those killed for the same reason last year. Nearly two-thirds were killed for covering politics.
Referring to the brutal death and dismemberment of Saudi journalist and American resident Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2, and Donald Trump's defense of Saudi Arabia, the CPJ reports:
"Essentially, Trump signaled that countries that do enough business with the United States are free to murder journalists without consequence."
Channeling Joseph Stalin, Donald Trump has said about the media:
"They're scum. They're horrible people. They are so illegitimate. They are just terrible people"Some of the people in the press are honorable. But you've got 50 percent who are terrible people."
No wonder Trump supporter Cesar Sayoc mailed pipe bombs to CNN last year.
Pulitzer prize-winning photojournalist Barbara Davidson--also attacked recently while covering a Los Angeles protest--said about the recent police assaults:
"When the president declares you an enemy of the state"Well the police, their job is to protect the state, right? So if they view us as the enemy they will treat you any way they choose. I think the police see journalists as attacking their tribe - they feel they are getting a lot of bad press because of what happened to Floyd and so I think they are retaliating against us."
Last March, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers trained their ire on journalists for reporting on asylum seekers detained in concentration camps at the Southern border with Mexico, going so far as compiling a list of 59 individuals, mostly Americans, intended to be stopped and questioned at San Diego-area checkpoints, and demanding access to journalists' phones without warrants, in flagrant violation of the Constitution's fourth amendment.
As activists and lawmakers call for drastic police reform, we must also consider the assault this administration has waged on the free press and its motives for doing so.
Once the free press--the only industry mentioned in the Constitution--is silenced or bent to political will, we can consider ourselves in a full-blown autocracy.
Are we already there?
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