President’s apparent suggestion that the FBI should ‘consider putting reporters in prison’ prompts call to action from journalists increasingly under attack

President Donald Trump’s apparent suggestion that the FBI should “consider putting reporters in prison” has been decried as a dangerous new assault on press freedom and prompted a call to action by American journalists who have been jailed in the US for their work.

Among those who criticised the reported comments are journalist Brian Karem, who spent two weeks in jail in Texas in 1990 for refusing to give up a source and who told the Guardian they were “deeply concerning”.

The president’s comments are said to have come amid this week’s revelations that Trump reportedly asked James Comey, when he was director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to drop its investigation into fired national security adviser Mike Flynn and his connections to Russia.

Donald Trump reportedly urged Comey to drop Michael Flynn investigation Read more

They were said to be part of the same conversation that the president had with Comey in the Oval Office in February, before Comey himself was abruptly fired last week, according to the report in the New York Times on Tuesday.

Before bringing up the subject of the FBI’s probe of Flynn, Trump reportedly complained about leaks in the news media and said that Comey “should consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information,” according to an associate of Comey, who had seen a memo from then-director Comey, the NYT said.

The journalist who broke the story, Michael Schmidt, expanded on the details briefly in the paper’s podcast on Wednesday morning in which he reported that, according to his sources: “The president started by talking about leaks and he brought up the fact that he thought James Comey should try to put reporters in jail. He said: ‘Look, you used to put reporters in prison 10 or 15 years ago and that had some real impact’.”

Trump apparently did not expand on the point or mention specific cases, but the reported comments marked a new low in relations between the White House and the media.

A White House statement accepted a conversation with Comey and Trump took place but said the reporting was not a “truthful or accurate portrayal of it”.

The time period that the president reportedly referred to coincides with the administrations of George W Bush and Barack Obama, where experts noted that there was an increasingly aggressive crackdown on press leaks, affecting both journalists and their sources.

“Reporters were not happy about it [that period]. But it did not make a difference to the media’s determination to do its job,” said Leonard Downie, professor of journalism at Arizona State University and a former executive editor of the Washington Post. “They continued to find things out and if president Trump thinks that trying to bully the press like this will stop them from holding the government accountable, then he is mistaken.”

The controversial New York Times journalist, Judith Miller, spent more than two months in jail in 2005 for civil contempt under the Bush government for refusing to appear before a grand jury investigating a government leak involving CIA operative Valerie Plame. Time journalist Matt Cooper only avoided a similar fate in the whole affair because a source came forward.

And the Bush and Obama administrations spent seven years trying to force New York Times reporter and author James Risen to reveal his confidential source in another government leak case.

Miller eventually testified in court. Risen narrowly avoided jail.

“The Miller case stands for the principle that a reporter’s privilege is not insurmountable,” said Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Brown said the specific wording of Trump’s apparent threat, as reported by the New York Times, that the FBI should jail journalists for publishing classified material, appeared to be suggesting that the media should be prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act.

This has happened to government leakers but never to journalists, he said. “The comments attributed to president Trump cross a dangerous line,” he said.

In an article in December 2016, James Risen accused Obama of laying the groundwork for Trump to attack press freedom.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trump reportedly said: ‘Look, you used to put reporters in prison 10 or 15 years ago and that had some real impact’.’ Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA

Meanwhile, Brian Karem has never been able to face wearing the color orange again since he spent two weeks in jail in 1990, in a prison-issue orange jumpsuit, after he refused to disclose a confidential source while working as a police reporter for a TV station in Texas.

He is now the executive editor of the Sentinel newspaper group in Maryland and the founder of the First Jail Birds Club, a small, informal group of journalists who have spent time behind bars for their work and advocate press freedom.

“On a professional level I’m deeply concerned about the president’s reported remarks. On a personal level I’m repulsed,” he said.

Karem warned: “The threat is real. Trump cares very little about a free press. It’s scary and we need to speak out strongly against this because if you don’t stick up for your rights you lose them.”

Karem pointed out that a journalist was arrested earlier this month in Virginia after persisting in asking health secretary Tom Price a question. “We are going to have to be ready to do our jobs and if that means going to jail we have to be ready for that, too,” he said.

Ironically, vice president Mike Pence was a champion of greater press freedom as a congressman from Indiana.

Pence battled in vain to get Congress to pass a federal shield law to protect journalists from being coerced to reveal material or sources. While there are varying levels of protection at state level, there is no such federal law.

After Judith Miller was jailed, a dismayed Pence commented: “Our founders did not put the freedom of the press in the first amendment [to the US Constitution] because they got good press – quite the opposite was true.”

And after two San Francisco Chronicle reporters were jailed in 2006 for refusing to disclose their sources in revealing a huge sports-doping scandal, Pence issued a press release, again calling on Congress to enact federal shield laws.

He said: “Once again the sad image of American journalists behind bars is being projected to the world.”

Josh Wolf spent 226 days in federal prison in California in 2006 and 2007 after he refused to hand over video footage of a protest in San Francisco to authorities. He said Trump’s reported comment to Comey about reporters constituted “a horrible suggestion in a non-stop litany of horrendous press attacks.”

Going to prison was “terrifying” and as an inmate he suffered threats of violence and witnessed violence, he told the Guardian.

The Society of Professional Journalists named him journalist of their year in 2006 for “upholding the principles of a free and independent press”.

Wolf said there had been a concerted assault on press freedom in the last 10 to 15 years, but he was confident most journalists would remain “steadfast” in their efforts, despite increasing pressure from the government and strained budgets.

“Now Trump has declared war on the media and it would be naive to do anything other than strap on the gloves and prepare for a fight,” he said.

Following the report of Trump’s latest threat to press freedom, Brian Karem said: “There is no question that we have to be more determined than ever. I don’t care if you are covering Madonna and Justin Bieber or the Trump administration and Russia, this is a call to arms for all journalists, editors and publishers.”