Attacking the Fourth Estate

For this leadership class, I read the piece, “Attacking the Fourth Estate,” by Allison Archer. Archer opens this piece by explaining that President Donald Trump is not the first political leader to attack the press and media. Ironically, Archer claimed that Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and many others have also launched attacks on the media in a bid to control what was said about them. However, Archer argues that in recent times there has been a shift in our access to worldwide communication, and, because of this, the way that Trump attacks the media is different than the leaders that came before him. Specifically, she claims that “journalistic accounts suggest the nature of such attacks in more recent years is qualitatively different than before,” and a prime example of this can be seen through President Trump’s twitter account. 

One thing I found interesting while reading this article is that Archer argued that there “should be an inherent tension between elected officials and journalists who seek to poke and prod at them, asking tough questions to inform the public of their representatives’ motivations and actions.” I had never thought about this before, but I realized that this was necessary in order to maintain transparency between the people and their leaders. Additionally, I found it interesting that many leaders before Trump did have issues with the media, but spoke of those issues in private. This could have been because of their personalities, but also because they didn’t have the social media platforms that Trump holds today to speak their minds. And, while social media gives many opportunities, Trump needs to keep a balance because too much aggression can cause distrust within his followers. I never really thought of this, but realized that there is a very delicate balance that needs to happen in terms of one’s projection on social media platforms.