NY Times publisher warns of ‘anti-press campaign,’ misinformation
‘For aspiring strongmen seeking to undermine the laws and norms and institutions that underpin a healthy democracy, the free press is usually one of the first targets,’ New York Times Publisher A.G. Sultzberger wrote in an essay last week about the importance of a free press. ‘It’s no secret why. Once you’ve constrained the ability of journalists to provide independent information to the public about those in power, it becomes far easier to act with impunity.’
The Hill
The publisher of The New York Times is warning about what he says is a trend of misinformation permeating public discourse and an increasingly hostile posture toward the press taken by leaders around the world.
“This anti-press playbook is now being used here in this country — and it could not come at a more difficult time for the American press,” Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger said as part of a speech at the University of Notre Dame that was published in a Times op-ed.
The business model that funded original reporting is failing, Sulzberger said.
“In short, a vastly smaller, financially weakened and technologically disintermediated profession now finds itself facing the most direct challenge to its rights and legitimacy, as well,” he wrote.
President Trump, the Times’s top executive said, “has been unusually aggressive in his use of anti-press rhetoric, and his supporters have been equally aggressive in going after his targets.”
READ THE ESSAY BY A.G. SULZBERGER IN ITS ENTIRETY
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