The media had lost a lot of credibility long before Trump, but he has pushed back like no other president or any elected official. His Fake News Awards highlights their greatest transgressions in the last year.  While his opponents believe he is a threat to the freedom of the press he has nothing as harmful as Obama’s attack on James Rosen at Fox.

Investigators pulled Rosen’s security badge records, phone logs and his personal e-mails, but they never charged him with a crime. No reporter has ever been prosecuted for seeking classified information.

 The Obama administration has pursued more leak investigations under the 1917 Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined; 

 From Twitter: Keith Olbermann: 

My experience dealing with @JamesRosenFNC was unpleasant and contentious. And I fully support him against this unwarranted act by DOJ

The Wall Street Journal, editorial board, May 21

With the Fox News search following the AP subpoenas, we now have evidence of a pattern of anti-media behavior. The suspicion has to be that maybe these “leak” investigations are less about deterring leakers and more about intimidating the press. We trust our liberal friends in the press corps won’t mute their dismay merely because this time the target is a network they love to hate.

Washington Post, columnist Eugene Robinson, May 21, 2013

The Obama administration has no business rummaging through journalists’ phone records, perusing their emails and tracking their movements in an attempt to keep them from gathering news. This heavy-handed business isn’t chilling, it’s just plain cold.

From Twitter: Jake Tapper, CNN Anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent:

Good to see so many progressives taking the principled stance on the DOJ’s dangerous attack on Fox’s James Rosen

The New York Times, editorial board, May 22:

With the decision to label a Fox News television reporter a possible ”co-conspirator” in a criminal investigation of a news leak, the Obama administration has moved beyond protecting government secrets to threatening fundamental freedoms of the press to gather news.

I would also add that the Democrats on the Hill tried- and fortunately failed- to pass a bill to regulate blogs- where they would have been able to decide who is and who is not considered a journalist and thus subject to protection.

Feinstein wants to limit who can be a journalist

By Eric Boehm | Watchdog.org The most recent congressional threat to the free press in the United States comes from California Democrat U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. In a proposed amendment to a media shield law being considered by Congress, Feinstein writes that only paid journalists should be given protections from prosecution for what they say

Nothing Trump has done has threatened the press as much as these transgressions. He could be toying with them, or he could be just holding them accountable.

In the past the media had lost respect because they were in a bubble and the world they reported  did not match the experience of many of the readers and viewers. The election  of Donald Trump incited such a rage that they abandoned all precedence of journalistic integrity as long as the outrage of the day fit their narrative.  Their bias became obvious and crippling.

The irony here is that Trump’s holding them accountable may do more to restore their quality than the benign tolerance of the past.  If they want to hold Trump accountable, and they do and they should,  they need to get their own house in order.

A second irony; remember how the left disrespected Fox, and in their snotty condescending manner called them Faux News? Is there not a little joy in this turnabout?

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