It should be easy to know where the United States stands on freedom of the press. After all, it’s protected and enshrined in the First Amendment to that country’s Constitution.

But since the election of President Donald Trump it has become increasingly difficult to know how committed the U.S. is to upholding its own Constitution, never mind protecting press freedoms at home and abroad.

Take last Tuesday, when within mere hours polar opposite positions on the issue were taken by the Trump and the American embassy in Burma.

In Burma (also known as Myanmar) the embassy sprang to the defence of a free press after the country’s top court rejected the final appeal of two Reuters journalists, Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone. They had been sentenced last September to seven years in jail for reporting on the military’s brutal crackdown on its minority Rohingya Muslim population.

“Journalism, satire, peaceful protest, and other forms of legitimate expression should not be crimes in a democratic society,” declared the embassy.

Mere hours later, Trump sent out a tweet calling for the New York Times “to get down on their knees & beg for forgiveness — they are truly the Enemy of the People!”

As the Times’ publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, replied: “The phrase ‘enemy of the people’ is not just false, it’s dangerous. It has an ugly history of being wielded by dictators and tyrants who sought to control public information.”

Sadly, now, those dictators and tyrants appear to have an enthusiastic cheerleader in Trump. And that has terrible consequences for the news media.

The latest annual index of press freedom in 180 countries published by Reporters Without Borders, for example, shows that “an intense climate of fear has been triggered” in many countries, making it more dangerous for journalists to do their jobs.

Indeed, last year, 63 journalists were killed simply for doing their jobs. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that another 251 were imprisoned.

It’s not as if Trump is unaware of the impact of his tweets. Sulzberger says he told the president face to face that there are “mounting signs that this incendiary rhetoric is encouraging threats and violence against journalists at home and abroad.”

In fact, it could be argued that Saudi Arabian operatives would not have murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi last year if that country’s rulers weren’t confident that Trump would turn a blind eye — which he did.

And who knows how Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo would have been treated by Burma’s courts if Trump wasn’t inciting contempt and even hatred for a free press?

The fact is the Pulitzer Prize-winning story the reporters uncovered was vitally important to documenting the ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya that the UN says was led by Burma’s generals.

Under their reign of terror at least 10,000 Rohingya have been killed, while another 725,000 have fled the country. UN investigators have called for the generals to be tried for genocide for their actions.

Instead, they are free and the journalists who exposed their crimes are in jail on trumped-up charges of illegally possessing official documents. Those charges were upheld despite the brave testimony of a police official who told the court they were victims of a setup.

This is dangerous not just for journalists, but for everyone in every country whose rights can easily be undermined when the media is vilified, threatened and otherwise prevented from doing its job.

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American presidents from Jefferson to Kennedy and Obama have recognized the importance of a free press, however inconvenient it is for those who hold power.

Trump betrays that proud legacy each time he indulges in his rants against the media.

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