Replies to post #286390 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[BOREALIS]

MORE: Globe rallies newspapers to protect free press from Trump attacks

By Bob Salsberg Associated Press August 10, 2018

BOSTON (AP) — A Boston newspaper is proposing a coordinated editorial response from publications across the U.S. to President Donald Trump’s frequent attacks on the news media.

‘‘We are not the enemy of the people,’’ said Marjorie Pritchard, deputy managing editor for the editorial page of The Boston Globe, referring to a characterization of journalists that Trump has used in the past. The president, who contends he has largely been covered unfairly by the press, also employs the term ‘‘fake news’’ often when describing the media.

The Globe has reached out to editorial boards nationwide to write and publish editorials on Aug. 16 denouncing what the newspaper called a ‘‘dirty war against the free press.’’

As of Friday, Pritchard said about 70 outlets had committed to editorials so far, with the list expected to grow. The publications ranged from large metropolitan dailies, such as the Houston Chronicle, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Miami Herald and Denver Post, to small weekly papers with circulations as low as 4,000.

The newspaper’s request was being promoted by industry groups such as the American Society of News Editors and regional groups like the New England Newspaper and Press Association. It suggested editorial boards take a common stand against Trump’s words regardless of their politics, or whether they generally editorialized in support of or in opposition to the president’s policies.

[...]

https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/08/10/globe-calls-for-war-words-against-trump-media-attacks/bOjknXaqL92wsnMPT5ZIVJ/story.html

[fuagf]

PegVA, Pittsburgh cartoonist says he was fired after 25 years for making fun of Trump

""NOT THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE": 70 NEWS ORGANIZATIONS WILL BLAST TRUMP'S ATTACK ON THE MEDIA"

Rob Rogers lost his job at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Thursday in move he says ‘goes against what a free press is all about’

Joanna Walters in New York
@Joannawalters13

Sun 17 Jun 2018 01.00 EDT
Last modified on Tue 24 Jul 2018 13.20 EDT

This article is over 1 month old


One of Rob Rogers’ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cartoons. Photograph: Rob Rogers

A cartoonist who lost his job at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette believes his searing portrayals of Donald Trump .. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump .. were the most likely cause of his firing.

--
Democratic snark and Oprah as Veep: Trump campaign launch three years on
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/16/donald-trump-campaign-launch-three-years-today
--

Rob Rogers was terminated ..

Sad to report this update: Today, after 25 years as the editorial cartoonist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, I was fired.

— Rob Rogers (@Rob_Rogers) June 14, 2018

.. on Thursday by the paper for which he had worked for 25 years, after six cartoons in a row were spiked and his employer tried to change his terms of working, he said.

His last cartoon depicted a bloated man representing the USA, impaled on a steel girder with “trade war” written on it, waving the Stars and Stripes and saying: “Take that, Canada, Mexico and Europe.” After being fired, Rogers drew Trump shaking hands with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/16/trump-kim-summit-analysis-north-korea , and saying: “You’re so talented and your people love you, look how they’re smiling!”
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Kim is standing on a pile of skulls.

“Suppressing voices in any situation is bad,” Rogers told the Guardian. “You want to have as many voices as you can and they are starting to have only one voice of the paper, and I think that goes against what a free press is all about – especially when silencing that voice is because of the president.”

Rogers’s departure prompted uproar from fans including the mayor of Pittsburgh, Bill Peduto .. http://pittsburghpa.gov/mayor/mayor.html . In a statement, he said: “The move today by the leadership of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to fire Rob Rogers after he drew a series of cartoons critical of President Trump is disappointing, and sends the wrong message about press freedoms in a time when they are under siege.”

The mayor said he had known Rogers for a long time but that had not stopped the cartoonist criticizing him in his art.

“This is precisely the time,” the mayor added, “when the constitutionally protected free press – including critics like Rob Rogers – should be celebrated and supported, and not fired for doing their jobs. This decision, just one day after the president of the United States said the news media is ‘our country’s biggest enemy ..

So funny to watch the Fake News, especially NBC and CNN. They are fighting hard to downplay the deal with North Korea. 500 days ago they would have “begged” for this deal-looked like war would break out. Our Country’s biggest enemy is the Fake News so easily promulgated by fools!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2018

’, sets a low standard in the 232-year history of the newspaper.”

Rogers was a finalist for the Pulitzer prize .. http://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/1999 .. in 1999, for cartoons that skewered then president Bill Clinton, mostly for the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He said he was feeling “anger and outrage” but added: “I saw this coming a while back.”

After leaving the Post-Gazette, Rogers wrote .. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/opinion/cartoonist-rob-rogers-trump-fired.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&login=email&auth=login-email .. an editorial for the New York Times headlined: “I was fired for making fun of Trump.”

“When I had lunch with my new boss a few months ago,” he wrote, “he informed me that the paper’s publisher believed the editorial cartoonist was akin to an editorial writer, and that his views should reflect the philosophy of the newspaper. That was a new one to me. I was trained in a tradition in which editorial cartoonists are the live wires of a publication – as one former colleague put it, the ‘constant irritant’.”

Speaking to the Guardian, Rogers said that when he was hired in 1993 the Post-Gazette was a liberal paper, largely reflecting the Democratic leanings of its city. Then as now, John Robinson Block was its publisher. He has been photographed shaking hands with Hillary Clinton and beaming .. https://www.pghcitypaper.com/Blogh/archives/2016/09/22/pittsburgh-post-gazette-publisher-hangs-on-donald-trumps-jet-in-a-more-than-memorable-experience .. beside Trump on his private jet.

Block did not respond to a request for comment but the Post-Gazette covered .. http://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2018/06/14/Post-Gazetteeditorial-cartoonist-Rob-Rogers/stories/201806140152 .. the firing. The editorial director, Keith Burris, whom the paper said “killed” cartoons by Rogers, was quoted as saying Rogers had been offered a new contract and that a “middle way” had been looked for, only for Rogers to be unwilling to “collaborate”.

“We never said he should do no more Trump cartoons or do pro-Trump cartoons,” said Burris, who acknowledged that he is “more conservative” than past editorial page editors. Before Trump’s election, Burris said, the owners of the paper had been trying “to right the ship” to reflect less liberal views.


Rogers’s cartoon on the Trump administration immigration policy. Photograph: Rob Rogers

Rogers said “the change in the paper did not happen overnight”, pointing to uproar when the Post-Gazette published an editorial in defence of Trump .. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/18/trump-pittsburgh-post-gazette-editorial-shithole-346845 .. when he reportedly called a group of developing world countries “shitholes”.

“Things really changed for me in March,” Rogers said, “when management decided that my cartoons about the president were ‘too angry’ and said I was ‘obsessed with Trump’.”

--
Steve Bell on the Trump-Kim summit – cartoon
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2018/jun/12/steve-bell-on-the-trump-kim-summit-cartoon
--

After a series of cartoons satirizing Trump were canceled this month, he said, he was sent a list of new working conditions he called draconian, subjecting him to an unprecedented level of oversight and “clamping down” on his power of free expression. He refused to accept and was fired, he said.

“We are supposed to be the watchdog that keeps the president accountable,” Rogers said, of the press. “In this situation [the Post-Gazette is] coddling the president and giving him cover. I’m worried about the people still working at the paper and about the readers of the largest newspaper in western Pennsylvania .. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/pennsylvania .”

Fans of Rogers spoke out on Twitter, reproducing his cartoons. One supporter said ..

Pulitzer finalist cartoonist Rob Rogers was fired from his job at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette for penning too many cartoons critical of trumplethinskin.

Dude is talented. Hoping he gets a new gig soon. We NEED that humor! https://t.co/LzuhYMItea

— BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ (@mmpadellan) June 15, 2018

: “Dude is talented … we NEED that humor”.

Another posted ..

This is the cartoon that got @Rob_Rogers fired after 25 years working at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Spread it around like a lice outbreak at a pre-k. pic.twitter.com/XJL52csPa1

— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) June 15, 2018

: “This is the cartoon that got Rogers fired.” It showed a drawing of a road sign saying ‘Caution’ with a silhouette resembling Trump grabbing a child as its parents fled. It was a comment on the controversy surrounding migrant families separated by US officials on crossing the southern border.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jun/17/pittsburgh-post-gazette-rob-rogers-cartoons

See also:

conix - Why I’m still happy Hillary lost
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=132913036

conix - Another lie, by fuagf: n" fact that you are still a solid supporter of the rascist Trump "
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=142891482
.. mine in reply ..
conix, "Another lie, by fuagf: n" fact that you are still a solid supporter of the rascist Trump"
Wonder what percentage of your posts involving Trump would place him in a negative light. Guessing a rather smallish fraction.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=142910610

[BOREALIS]

Journalists are not the enemy

By the Editorial Board
August 16, 2018

A central pillar of President Trump’s politics is a sustained assault on the free press. Journalists are not classified as fellow Americans, but rather “The enemy of the people.” This relentless assault on the free press has dangerous consequences. We asked editorial boards from around the country – liberal and conservative, large and small – to join us today to address this fundamental threat in their own words.

Replacing a free media with a state-run media has always been a first order of business for any corrupt regime taking over a country. Today in the United States we have a president who has created a mantra that members of the media who do not blatantly support the policies of the current U.S. administration are the “enemy of the people.” This is one of the many lies that have been thrown out by this president much like an old-time charlatan threw out “magic” dust or water on a hopeful crowd.

“The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom,” wrote John Adams.

For more than two centuries, this foundational American principle has protected journalists at home and served as a model for free nations abroad. Today it is under serious threat. And it sends an alarming signal to despots, from Ankara to Moscow, Beijing to Baghdad, that journalists can be treated as a domestic enemy.

Read the full Globe editorial
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2018/08/15/editorial/Kt0NFFonrxqBI6NqqennvL/story.html

[...]

More than 350 news outlets from around the country have joined our effort to support a free press.

Scroll below to read them.
We will be updating the list as more editorials are published.

[...]

http://apps.bostonglobe.com/opinion/graphics/2018/08/freepress/