Joseph Russomanno

AZ I See It

We won’t be able to say we didn’t see it coming. Candidate Donald Trump is making it very clear what certain aspects of a Trump presidency would look like. One of those aspects is speech and press freedom — or, that is, his attempts to dismantle those parts of our First Amendment.

In a news conference this month, Trump continued his war with the news media, including describing some of those present as “dishonest” and singling out one journalist as a “sleaze.” Trump’s complaint: reports about his pledged but slow-moving donations to veterans groups “make me look very bad.” Like the schoolyard bully who can’t control everything in his fiefdom, Trump throws a tantrum when the same media he often manipulates to his advantage suddenly doesn’t bow to his wishes.

Yes, those reports make him look very bad. Sometimes the truth does that. And there’s the rub. The American brand of speech and press freedom reveres the truth. Heck, the truth and the ability to discover it is so venerated that our law even allows for minor falsity in limited circumstances in an effort to achieve “uninhibited, robust and wide-open” debate on matters of public concern, and with the hope that the truth will ultimately emerge. The First Amendment allows for — even encourages, some would say — the kind of reporting that challenges authority in the name of the people. And it protects the people in their right to discuss and debate various viewpoints, in the process becoming an informed electorate armed with the power of the vote. The government can’t interfere.

But Trump wants to change that. It’s more than his opposition to anything that fails to provide the reverence he expects. It’s a desire to control the narrative. Earlier this year, he announced his desire to “open up” our libel laws so that the publishers of reports he finds unacceptable can be successfully sued. First, Trump apparently doesn’t realize that no president can do that. Such a change would require an about-face by the U.S. Supreme Court, a court that even in its most conservative eras tends to be First Amendment–friendly.

Second, Trump’s plan — while revealing yet another side of his controlling nature — would undermine the very fabric of America. The ability to criticize government and public officials (and those who aspire to be public officials) is a cornerstone of this democratic society. The ability of the press and citizens to hold those in power accountable is precisely what the Founding Fathers had in mind. And yet, even some of them went astray.

With the ink barely dry on the Bill of Rights, a president who thought he knew better, John Adams, and his Federalist compatriots in Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1798. Designed to consolidate executive authority, the new law criminalized criticism of the administration and Congress. Several violators were arrested and successfully prosecuted, including newspaper publishers who had dared to print the truth. Efforts led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to explain how the dangerous law subverted the First Amendment and its meaning eventually turned public sentiment. The Federalists were voted out of office, and the party disintegrated. The first step toward discerning the central meaning of the First Amendment had been taken.

Like Trump today, Adams and the Federalists — having clearly lost sight of that central meaning and its importance — wanted a subservient press. In the late 18th century, it required the likes of Jefferson and Madison to confront tyranny. Who among us is the Jefferson or Madison to confront this 21st-century version of tyranny?

Joseph Russomanno is an associate professor in ASU’s Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and a faculty affiliate at the O’Connor College of Law. He is a First Amendment and media law expert. Follow him on Twitter, @jarussomanno.