The relationship between the media and Trump’s White House was controversial. It provoked mistrust and provoked a disturbing increase in physical and verbal threats against journalists. These threats were aided and abetted by Trump’s constant pressures on his supporters of “false news” and blows to the press as “the enemy of the people”.
“I’m not the only journalist who covered this White House, which has had death threats,” Jim Acosta, CNN’s White House chief correspondent, told “Reliable Sources.” “We cannot be in a place in this country where political journalists, White House correspondents, need bodyguards to cover political campaign events.”
Like many other journalists, Acosta had a good portion of his expenses over the years. A dispute at a news conference in 2018 prompted Trump and his aides to revoke the Acosta White House press briefing, which was later reinstated after a court ruled in favor of CNN in a court dispute. It was an unprecedented act by a president that many say put at risk the protections of the First Amendment for journalists.
But the impact of Trump’s repeated attacks doesn’t end there. It has also sunk into the hearts and minds of several Americans, who now doubt the trust of new sources or directly condemn the media and reporters proven by the facts as propaganda machines against the president. Masses of misinformation and conspiracy theories cause fewer Americans to worry about what has been shown to be true and false.
The result of Trump’s animosity toward the media over the years has been discordant. Confidence in the press has been removed and, at the same time, it is sowing seeds of skepticism that have materialized in the form of claims of electoral fraud, falsehoods in voting and hesitation.
“It’s just widespread hostility and undemocratic hostility to the process that I just hope we never receive,” Acosta said. “It’s so damaging and destructive to our democracy.”