President Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington DC 20500
2 February 2017
Dear President Trump,
Through much of its history, American society has held up many
jobs as worthy of respect. Teachers, doctors,
police and fire fighters, those serving in the military, clergymen, writers,
editors, journalists, public servants, and many more were all regarded as
playing an important part in the fabric of our society.
More recently we have taken to disrespecting these
professions. We speak of them in
unreasonable generalizations. All
teachers, we say, are not working hard enough.
All doctors are getting paid far more than they are worth. All police officers are corrupt and
racist. Most recently it is journalists
who have been getting a beating, and much of that disrespect has come from your
quarter.
Members of the news media often put themselves in harm’s way to
provide us with information about war-torn parts of the world. They work long hours trying to find the truth
behind things. They do their best to
make sense of a very confusing set of data and try to report that in the most
objective way they can. Is there
bias? Of course there is bias. Human beings cannot report on anything
without seeing it from a particular perspective. But they try to eliminate bias as best they
can.
But when you call all reporters, particularly those who report
things that you disagree with -- purveyors
of “Fake News”, that is not only disingenuous, it is insulting to those who
spend their lives trying to keep the public informed.
I am not a reporter. I don’t
know any reporters. But for the sake of
the dignity of your office, I ask you to treat them with respect, as you would
anyone who does a difficult job. In
return, I think you can expect many of them to do the same for you.
Sincerely,
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