The New York Times, NO. 8
An
authoritarian controls information and the news media. Trump has started
to.
Democratic
governments prize accurate information as a guide to decision-making.
Authoritarians seek to suppress inconvenient truths.
Mr. Trump
has sought to manipulate government information in several ways. He fired the
head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after the agency reported disappointing
job growth this summer. He shut down federal data collection efforts related to
climate change, presumably because the information might encourage people to
take action.
He has
also taken steps to control the media, both traditional forms and new ones.
He arranged for the sale of TikTok from a Chinese
company to investors with ties to his political allies. He pushed
Congress to end funding for public radio and
television. He extracted multimillion-dollar payments
from ABC, Paramount (which owns CBS), YouTube and Meta to settle baseless
claims that he has been treated unfairly, and he is pursuing lawsuits against
The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. All of these moves are meant to
reduce coverage that does not parrot his views.
The Bottom
Line
In place of an independent and free press, Mr. Trump evidently hopes to create
a shadow ecosystem willing to promote his interests and talking points.
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