“Journalists like all Americans should be free of the fear of being violently attacked while doing their jobs,” President Donald Trump said on Friday, June 29, a day after Jarrod Ramos opened fire in the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland and killed five individuals.
The incident occurred on Thursday, June 28, which is considered the deadliest day for journalists who risk their lives just to report the truth so that the American people may be better informed and our government officials are made accountable.
The shooter, who has been charged with five counts of murder, was reportedly motivated by a vendetta against the newspaper after he lost a defamation case he filed against Capital Gazette for a column published in 2012 that described his guilty plea to harassing a woman on social media.
Trump’s comment came a day late after ignoring reporters’ questions about the tragedy, an unusual response for the president who would fire a barrage of attacks over Twitter to defend his loyal supporters like Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and even dictators he admires like Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
What is ironic is the message of his statement because the truth is: Trump has been spearheading the attacks against journalists and has been fanning the flame of doubt and hate against the free press.
During the campaign and especially after he was sworn into office, Trump has demonized the news media (except Fox News) as the “number one enemy of the American people,” vilified them as “fake news” for reporting the truth and facts which do not serve Trump’s self-serving narcissistic of himself and his presidency.
Many reporters have reportedly been verbally attacked by Trump supporters as a result, emboldened by Trump’s accusations and suggestions against news media, including liking a video on Twitter showing him attacking a man whose face was covered by a label “CNN.”
As the Washington Post reported, the far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos had sent out a message to reporters on Tuesday saying, ‘’I can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight.”
Trump’s rhetoric — demonizing immigrants, people of color, the Muslims, the press, his critics among the Republican Party, President Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, justices who do not support his agenda, the U.S. intelligence community, our allies in the international community, the United Nations, the members of the LGBTQ community, etc — has emboldened a lot of his fan base to act on the seeds of hate he has been planting in their consciousness.
Hate crimes have risen dramatically since the 2016 election and continue to be on the rise since Trump became president. This climate has been the backdrop of this newsroom attack in Maryland.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution mandates that “Congress shall make no law….abridging (limiting) the freedom of speech, or of the press…”
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), this constitutional mandate “is also an essential contributor to the American belief in government confined by a system of checks and balances, operating as a restraint on tyranny, corruption and ineptitude. For much of the world’s history, governments, following the impulse described by Justice Holmes, have presumed to play the role of benevolent but firm censor, on the theory that the wise governance of men proceeds from the wise governance of their opinions. But the United States was founded on the more cantankerous revolutionary principles of John Locke, who taught that under the social compact sovereignty always rests with the people, who never surrender their natural right to protest, or even revolt, when the state exceeds the limits of legitimate authority. Speech is thus a means of ‘people-power,’ through which the people may ferret out corruption and discourage tyrannical excesses.”
Trump should know and understand what Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote in the decision of the landmark case New York Times Co. v. United States (1971): “The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.”
The freedom of the press, protected by the First Amendment, is critical to a democracy in which the government is accountable to the people.
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
“motivated by a vendetta against the newspaper after he lost a defamation case he filed against Capital Gazette for a column published in 2012”
How stupidly ignorant can you be to blame Pres Trump for this shooting? You defend the 1st Amendment yet you spread the same lies the President has been fighting the press about. People like you are a disgrace to your profession. A fellow reporter has also blamed the President for the shooting and he has been fired from his job due to being called out on it. You should resigntoo for your total bias against Pres Trump. Not once have I read an article of yours in support of the President.
This is an irresponsible op-ed and devoid of facts. I am ashamed to be associated with yellow journalism. Journalist like Gel is a stain to the profession. You don’t put your politics in your reporting. Other publishers and reporters had apologized and recanted their mistakes. You should be TERMINATED!
She’s another biased, half-baked “so called “ journalist that I cannot respect.
Your comments are typical of the far left’s reporting, biased, anti-trump, punctuated by a hateful dose of lies! Of course, the likes of you are dubbed “fake news”, so don’t complain about that. Laying everything vile and negative happening in America at the president’s doorstep is misguided and absolutely wrong. The rise of crime in the country after the president was elected is not because of him, not condoned by him. It is the product of a society that unrelentlessly maligns, disrespects, threatens, denigrates, and insults a man who, even just out of respect for the office he holds, must be treated with courtesy. You should look at yourself in the mirror and realize one of the perpetrators is staring right on your face! You may not swing a malevolent hand on the face of someone with a divergent view, but with the words as your weapon, you are more potent, more destructive. If you are a responsible journalist, you must exhibit an example of fair and objective reporting instead of fanning the hatred already swirling around you. But you have mostly chosen to embrace the “herd complex” mentality that now plagued your profession by adding more venom to the animus that leads to violence perpetrated by those on your side of the political spectrum. You have chosen to insert yourself in the core of the political melee that is dragging this country down and are using the might of your profession as a platform to disseminate your arrogant agenda of hate against a president who is trying his best to enforce the laws of this country against all odds. The sense of responsibility for impartial and honest reporting must be a core value exemplified and pursued by a decent and honorable press. Unfortunately, you have overtly decided to pursue a disgraceful path that no person of integrity would be proud to walk on!
i’ve already told this woman before to choose what profession she wants, news reporting or opinion writer. she can’t be both. she won’t listen. now she has lost all credibility as either. what a shame! Gel, why not just put up a Filipino store? you might have more credibility as a sari sari store tindera than as a so-called “journalist”.
I used to watch this woman back in the old days and I remember how dumb she was
You go to the USA following your cheating husband where they welcomed you, gave you shelter, a home, a life, a job. Instead of showing appreciation you shows scorn and disdain. Go away you ungrateful witch.
GEL SANTOS RELOS, ONE OP-ED, 30 FAKE NEWS
i don’t take great pleasure in attaching this article from Asian Journal cuz it shows what a dishonest journalist this fellow FilAm is. but attach it here i must if only to precisely expose her fake news kind of journalism to my fellow FilAms.
there’s enough of her ilk of fake news “journalists” on mainstream media (MSM) in America. she didn’t need to join their ranks and parrot their fake news. but she did. she could have been more original and more professional. but she chose to be neither. she could have listened to her fellow FilAm immigrants about their aspirations in this great country. instead, she stayed put within the MSM echo chamber. she could have used critical thinking. instead, she stuck to MSM groupthink. so she mindlessly marches in locked steps with them and follows their agenda, i.e., to promote the Democrat Party.
if she must have an agenda as a journalist, it might as well be a pro-FilAm agenda, which is to promote the FilAm immigrants’ American Dream. and if there’s a political party that’s absolutely toxic to that American Dream, it’s none other than the one that preaches that you’ll never succeed in America cuz the racist white man will always keep you down.
any FilAm who believes that lie will amount to nothing. yet Gel Santos Relos joined forces with the political party that promotes that self-defeating narrative and self-fulfilling prophesy, the Democrat Party. to carry water for them, she even spreads fake news. below is a typical op-ed by her, published a year ago. it’s pockmarked with fake news from beginning to end.
for all the fake news in it, she was called out by Juanita Nimfa Yamsuan Gamez, a very smart, successful, and self-made FilAm who refused the Democrat Party’s victimhood mantra, chased her American Dream, and made it come true by sheer hard work. instead of retracting the op-ed for all the fake news in it, Ms. Relos dared her to point them out one by one. that’s when i stepped in.
please read her short 680-word (much of which aren’t even her own) op-ed below for yourself and see how many fake news you can find in it. starting in the title, i found a total of 30. can you spot them all?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/758353287841619/permalink/928246394185640/