Enemy of The American People

I am an Enemy of The American People.

 

For forty years I have spent my life teaching and encouraging the young people of America to grow up to be Enemies of The American People.   I attempted to instill in them a reverence for accuracy.  I can recall over 45 years ago when my first publication was printed and delivered and one of the editors came to me upset because she had found an error in our reporting.   It was a spelling error and she was in tears.   Accuracy and truth mattered to me and to my young students.

Even in a high school or college environment, when a story was big; when it contained explosive or controversial information, my student editors knew enough to not just get one source, or two sources, but we had to have three different, unrelated, and reliable sources before we would print our publication.  And one particularly important story that resulted in the dismissal of a faculty member we insisted on five different sources and one member of the faculty.  Yet, the President of The United States calls me and my thousands of students Enemies of The American People.

Before my young charges could begin to write their first sentence, we studied the history of the freedom of the press in America.  We studied about patriotic truth-sayers such as John Peter Zenger who in 1734 was brought to trial by the Governor of New York charging him with Criminal Libel after the publication of satirical attacks. The jury acquitted Zenger, who became the iconic American hero for freedom of the press.  We studied about the brave men and women who first fought the British Government and then the newly formed American Government to assure that every person had the freedom to express their opinions and to share the news of the day with their fellow citizens.  But President Trump calls us Enemies of the American People!

Of course, not everyone has taken journalism in high school or in college.  So, allow me to share with you the piece of paper that every journalist keeps somewhere on their desk and is surely hung up in multiple places in every news room of America; including @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, and @CNN.  And even at FOX:

So, this is the document that guides THE ENEMIES OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

I know I have said this countless time; but history does repeat itself and sometimes it doesn’t exactly repeat but it rhymes:

“There is nothing to see with Russia!”                         “I am not a crook!”

I stand here today, PROUD to be An Enemy of The American People and a Journalist

And That’s My View From The Hill