US — #WeeklyAddress September 25 – October 1: Trump attacks the #FakeNews over Puerto Rico

President Trump continued his criticism of the media this week for not covering events to his liking. In two tweets sent on Thursday, September 28, he implied that the media treated him unfairly for his response to assist hurricane-battered Puerto Rico, a US territory severely impacted by Hurricane Maria:

Over the weekend, Trump persisted in his position that the “fake news” media was propagating myths about devastation in Puerto Rico in a series of 24 tweets, six of which directly attacked the media.

Trump lashes out at media after failed endorsement in Alabama

On September 30, President Trump also referred to the media as “fake news” for covering the Republican primary Senate race in Alabama. This tweet was a reaction to the media coverage after his endorsed candidate, Luther Strange, failed to secure the Republican nomination for the campaign to fill Attorney General Jeff Sessions' empty Senate seat.

Sarah Palin renews legal action against the New York Times

Since his presidential campaign, Trump has called for the “opening up of libel laws” in order to make it easier to sue outlets like the New York Times or the Washington Post for stories he sees as “purposely negative.” Palin’s persistence in pursuing the NYT for defamation could be interpreted as an indirect consequence of the anti-media attitude permeating the current administration.

On Monday, September 25, Sarah Palin and her legal team filed a new motion to reopen her defamation case against the New York Times, claiming the judge did not operate normal procedures. In a new motion to reconsider, Palin states that she believes she wasn’t given a fair chance to defend her argument. The case was based on an article published by the Times’ editorial board shortly after the June 2017 shooting at a congressional baseball practice in Virginia that wounded four, including one Republican congressman. The editorial mistakenly associated the previous 2011 shooting with Sarah Palin’s political action committee’s map of several congressional districts, which used stylized crosshairs as targets. The article was corrected two days later, with the NYT publicly stating that there was no correlation between Sarah Palin’s PAC and the shooting. Her case was first closed on August 29, as Judge Rakoff of the US District Court stated that claims of defamation must be used selectively, so journalists can continue publicly challenging public figures.

The United States ranks 43rd out of 180 countries in RSF's 2017 World Press Freedom Index after falling 2 places in the last year.

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