A Dangerous Path
Bailey Rae Bridler
I am sure a large amount of us never thought we would see the day when a Twitter mogul would become the president of the United States, but that happened. And I am also sure that most of us never imagined an America where we government would control the media, but that also seems to be happening. It is one thing to have left or right leaning newscasts, but it is completely another to have the new President of the U.S. telling people not to talk to the media and regulating what the people are told about. It seems as though we are heading in a direction where the government is muting our freedom of speech by regulating the media. If we continue down this way, our media sources will likely become similar to Russia Today, Russia’s government run media source that is used to advance their government’s political agenda through propaganda.
President Trump has already began telling the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to talk to the press. In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture was informed that any communications with the media needed to be approved by the Trump administration and all of their social media had to be approved by a manager. Following that, this passed Tuesday (1/24) Badlands National Park in South Dakota tweeted a series of tweets about climate change, only to be deleted later that same afternoon.
Regardless of whether or not Trump wants the media to obtain information about current matters, it is our right as citizens to know what is going on and the reporters have a right to share that information with us. Trump can call the media whatever names he chooses, his supporters even once used the Nazi term “Lugenpresse“ (translation: lying press) during a rally, but he has no right to mute them. The American people deserve to be updated on what is going on and to read their news on whatever outlet they choose. Trump can declare a war on the media and his administration can give whatever alternative facts to the public they want, but journalists will find the real facts and by the U.S. constitution they are entitled to do so. Afterall, it was two reporters who exposed President Nixon in the Watergate scandal, and the people deserved to know about that as well.
Whether or not you support Trump, now is a time for people to be weary. This seems like a dangerous road the U.S. is heading down if our government employees are being told not to talk to the media. Many presidents in the past have had their issues with the media however, after long term speculation of the Russians hacking both the DMC and GOP came out to be unfortunately true, the taste of the Russian government is still running ramped through the states. Russia had favored Trump to win the election since 2015 and therefore worked with WikiLeaks to get into American’s heads before they hit the polls this past November and were successful in that their pick for the 45th president of the U.S. won.
We have allowed Russia to influence us enough so far, and the U.S. does not need anymore of their influence. We do not need to start going down the path of government influenced or controlled media. Reporters need to go report, and the Trump administration needs to deal with whatever the media puts out their just like the 44 presidential administrations did before. Part of being a free nations means the freedom of speech, it is our first amendment right and it should remain that way.