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Committee to Protect Journalists: Trump is a threat to press freedom

On a day in which Donald Trump had pounded furiously away at one of his favorite themes, the "rigged" media, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a statement labeling a possible Trump presidency a threat to press freedom.

“Donald Trump, through his words and actions as a candidate for president of the United States, has consistently betrayed First Amendment values,” CPJ’s board chairwoman Sandra Mims Rowe said in a statement on Thursday.

At a rally in Florida on Thursday, Trump railed against the media, saying they are working with the Clinton campaign to defeat him and declaring that he was preparing to sue the New York Times because they published accounts of women who accused Trump of inappropriately groping them.

“Corporate media is no longer involved in journalism. They're a political special interest no different than any lobbyist with a total political agenda,” the GOP nominee said at a rally on Thursday.

The CPJ statement continued, “since the beginning of his candidacy, Trump has insulted and vilified the press and has made his opposition to the media a centerpiece of his campaign.”

The report cites, among other examples, an incident in November in which Trump mocked a disabled New York Times journalist by imitating him on stage at a rally. Trump has denied he was imitating the reporter.

“A Trump presidency would represent a threat to press freedom in the United States, but the consequences for the rights of journalists around the world could be far more serious,” Rowe said in the statement.

It continues, “any failure of the United States to uphold its own standards emboldens dictators and despots to restrict the media in their own countries.”