he United States achieved independence in 1776. The founding fathers of the country had endured oppression for over 150 years before that. They recognised the need to protect the freedoms to secure democracy, so much so that free speech and press freedom were protected in the First Amendment to the US constitution in 1791.

The First Amendment protects the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and the right to petition. Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the US and one of the founding fathers, said “our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

An independent press and freedom of speech have been protected by the US courts in several cases where these have been challenged or have required further interpretation. In 1971, the US Supreme Court upheld the publication of Pentagon Papers that contained official history of the United States’ political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1968. This, despite government efforts to stop The New York Times from doing so. The famous Watergate scandal investigated by The Washington Post reporters forced President Richard Nixon to resign in 1974.

The US misadventures in Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world have also been widely covered in the American press. Bill Clinton’s impeachment after the Monica Lewinsky scandal; human rights violations in Abu Ghraib and Guantanmo; WikiLeaks; and similar exposes have become a hallmark of press freedom in the US. In recognition of this importance, the nation’s capital, Washington, DC, has a “Newseum”, a one of its kind museum of news. The walls of the Newseum are adorned with quotes of past presidents and legendary journalists highlighting the significance of press freedom.

However, American politics changed when Donald Trump threw his hat in the ring as the presidential candidate in 2015. The media covered his flamboyant past and shady business dealings which infuriated him. He has frequently referred to mainstream media outlets like the CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post as ‘fake news.’ He has also targeted reporters who have covered his campaign rallies and press conferences. He had an altercation with host Megyn Kelly at the first presidential debate, and then added fuel to the fire by tweeting about it and urging his supporters to go after her.

At a press conference in June 2016, where the agenda was fundraising for war veterans, he spent most of the time launching a frontal attack on the press. As reported by Jeremy Diamond of the CNN, he called reporters “collectively and at times individually – as ‘dishonest,’ ‘not good people,’ ‘sleazy’ and among the worst human beings he has ever met.”

Legendary TV journalist, Leslie Stahl, who hosts 60 Minutes at CBS, said that she and her boss met Donald Trump at his office in New York soon after he had won the Republican nomination in 2016. She said Trump mildly threatened her to “do a good job” while referring to what his supporters had done to Megyn Kelly. “When I asked why he keeps targeting the press, he said I do it to discredit you all and to demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you,” recalled Stahl at a subsequent gathering in New York city. Trump walked out of another Leslie Stahl interview in 2020 just before his final debate with Joe Biden. Later, he tweeted about his CBS interviewer: “Look at the bias, hatred and rudeness.”

Katy Tur, a reporter who covered the Trump campaign for NBC News, was often criticised by Trump at his rallies. In an interview, she pointed out “if he feels like he’s being treated unfairly, he will try to discredit the person who is criticising him or has pushed back on him. And he’ll do it with personal insults. He’ll call you names; call you third rate; call you a liar.” Trump also came under fire for mocking a disabled New York Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski. At a campaign rally, he performed an impression of the said reporter who suffers from a congenital joint condition.

It didn’t stop even after he entered the White House as president. He changed the tradition of statesmen showing restraint towards the press and respecting their right to direct tough questions at those in power. His treatment of female reporters and, particularly, reporters of colour routinely came under scrutiny during his White House tenure. At a press briefing about corona virus, he asked Weijia Jiang of CBS News, a Chinese-American journalist, to ask China instead of him. He went on to call her question “nasty” before moving on to another reporter. CNN’s Kaitlan Collins was next up to ask the president a question. But he, instead, tried to stop her from asking a question and attempted to move on to someone else. After she pressed him, he abruptly ended the press briefing.

Marvin Kalb, Edward R Murrow Professor Emeritus at the Harvard Kennedy School, published a book titled, Enemy of the People: Trump’s War on the Press, the New McCarthyism, and the Threat to American Democracy, in 2018. “Shortly after assuming office in January 2017, President Donald Trump accused the press of being an “enemy of the American people.” Attacks on the media had been a hallmark of Trump’s presidential campaign, but this charge marked a dramatic turning point: language like this ventured into dangerous territory. Twentieth-Century dictators—notably, Stalin, Hitler and Mao—had all denounced their critics, especially the press, as “enemies of the people.” Their goal was to delegitimise the work of the press as “fake news” and create confusion in the public mind about what’s real and what isn’t; what can be trusted and what can’t be. That, it seems, is also Trump’s goal,” Kalb wrote in the introduction to the book.

When, after losing the 2020 election, Donald Trump claimed that the election had been ‘stolen,’ he didn’t like when the media challenged his claims about election fraud as having no basis. After announcing his candidacy as the Republican nominee, Donald Trump’s antagonism towards the press has been on grand display. Reporters Sans Frontiers, a representative organisation of journalists, compiled a list this year and analysed that “Trump insulted, attacked, or threatened the media at least 108 times in public speeches or remarks from September 1 to October 24 [this year]” in the run-up to elections.

On the campaign trail and in several interviews, Trump has suggested that if he regains the White House, he will seek revenge on news outlets that enrage him. More specifically, Trump has pledged to send reporters to jail if they don’t reveal their sources and withdraw broadcast licences of major television networks as punishment for coverage he didn’t like. Contrary to what Trump claims, the government actually doesn’t grant licences to national networks that he keeps targeting.

Trump called for NBC News to be investigated for treason in 2023 over its coverage of criminal charges he faces. After his televised debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, he turned his guns towards the host broadcaster, ABC, and expressed anger over the moderators’ decision to fact-check him in real time.

“It speaks directly to the First Amendment—and the First Amendment is a cornerstone of our democracy,” Federal Communications Commission chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, told the National Public Radio in an interview. “While the FCC has authority to provide licences for (local) television and radio, it is pretty fundamental that we do not take them away because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes any kind of content or coverage,” Rosenworcel went on to add in the NPR interview.

The Federal Communications Commission was set up in 1934 as an independent agency. Trump posted a video last year on social media promising to bring the agency under White House control. Whether, and to what extent, he follows up on his threats to the media will only become known if he is elected as the next president on November 5. For the time being, the media in the US are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.

The writer teaches journalism at Lamar University in Texas. He tweets at @awaissaleem77