As many Americans have noticed, during President Donald Trump’s short time in the White House thus far, he has already waged war against the press. In a rally in Florida last week, Trump went as far as to say that the news media has its own agenda and inferred that members of the press do not have the American people’s best interest at heart.

Many are up in arms about Trump’s comments towards the news media, and to a degree rightly so. However what some people may not realize is that this is not the first time a U.S. president has denounced the news media.

There are countless examples to choose from to examine how presidents have had battles with the media in the past.

In 2004, former President Bill Clinton attacked ABC News in an interview with longtime anchor Peter Jennings following the scandals that surrounded the later years of his presidency. In the interview Jennings citied that Clinton had been rated very low in “moral authority” by a group of historians working for C-SPAN. In fact, Jennings said the report listed Clinton below former President Richard Nixon, who had resigned from the presidency following his involvement in the Watergate scandal.

Clinton blamed networks, specifically ABC, for not showing the full picture, inferring that the media had it out for him, which would have affected his ratings post presidency.

A struggle between the news media and the President of the United States precedes modern politics as well. Even Thomas Jefferson, who was one of the instrumental figures who included freedom of the press in the First Amendment, said while in office “nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.”

So what does this mean for journalism and its role in American politics, and why have so many presidents denounced news sources? The role of journalism is always to report the unbiased truth. As we have covered several times during this past calendar year in The Crier, that is not always the case for many major media outlets. This past semester alone we ran an editorial on why fake news is not journalism. In last issue’s Opinion section, we also ran an article about the biases that come with many of the major media outlets, and the author of the article specifically called out CNN for editorializing in news articles.

Here at The Saint Anselm Crier, we are committed to providing the most accurate and least biased news possible for the Saint Anselm Community, and that should also be in the interests of every news organization. Is the media allowed to disagree with world leaders? Should the media uncover corruption and scandal? The answer to both questions is of course, however it is important to present a story with all of the facts, and to show both sides of an argument. Leaving facts out intentionally or reporting inaccurate information does not do the American people any good.

Journalism and freedom of the press are vital components of our society and democracy as a whole. It is crucial that journalists work every day to ensure that the unbiased truth is reported. With regards to presidential politics in particular, it is important for the news media not to allow their political views to cloud the facts when reporting on a story.