Current unrest underlines necessity of allowing journalists to do their jobs, retired editor-publisher in S.D. writes

Timothy Waltner

President Trump bears indirect responsibility in attacks on the press in recent days during protests over the death of of African-American George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police (and, to a lesser extent, over the death of Breonna Taylor during a botched police raid in Louisville), writes retired rural publisher and editor Timothy Waltner, the First Amendment Committee chair at the South Dakota Newspaper Association.

Law enforcement officials have arrested, tear-gassed or shot at journalists with non-lethal rounds, sometimes even after the journalists had identified themselves as the press. 

"You can’t directly link the president’s verbal attacks on the press with the physical attacks we’ve seen in recent days; he did not tell people to do that. But the words President Trump uses and the attitude he promotes have impact," Waltner writes. "Those sentiments and the constant barrage of those verbal attacks encourage, empower and enable the mistrust of journalists. Journalists have thick skin and will continue to do their jobs. But I fear for our culture, our social fabric and our democracy." Read more here.