In better times than these, I’ve wondered what would happen to American journalism if it lost the tattered protections—among them the First Amendment and patchwork of shield laws—that journalists in other countries never had in the first place. Now we might find out.
Trump was scornful. “It’s all fake news,” he said, though he didn’t deny seeing such a report. Jim Acosta, the CNN reporter, tried to reply.
A lot of journalists expect nothing good (except for a torrent of stories) to come to journalism from Trump and his nominee for attorney general, Jeff Sessions. Trump let it be known Tuesday that “when intelligence reports get leaked out to the press” it’s not just “pretty sad” but “illegal.”
If Sessions chooses to prosecute reporters who traffic in such reports (or less charged documents), he’ll have the courts to back him up: the so-called reporter’s privilege (to protect sources) has been knocked down by first the Seventh Circuit Court in Chicago and then the critical Fourth Circuit in Virginia.
In this 11th hour before the Inauguration Day many of us think of as midnight, I look around at the troops mustered for battle. A decade or two of austerity has served us well in one regard: today’s journalists are lean and mean and accustomed to living off the land.
