The Press Kissed His Ring. Here's What Their Silence Is Costing You.

Hey free press. America watched you sit quietly while a man stood in your house and mocked everything you say you believe in.

A convicted felon and a civilly adjudicated sexual abuser stood in front of 700 journalists and government officials at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and insulted you and your work. He called you names. He degraded your hard work.

He went after and insulted Kaitlan Collins, a gifted, award winning member of your profession after she won the Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage Under Deadline Pressure award.

You sat in your seats. You stayed silent. You’ve normalized his conduct and it’s not OK.

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Nobody stood up. Nobody stopped him. This was the moment for one person on that stage, or one whole table in the room, to rise and say enough. The moment came, and you let it pass.

The Award That Told the Truth

The same night, the Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability went to reporters at The Wall Street Journal for their work on Jeffrey Epstein. They uncovered a birthday letter sent by Donald Trump to Epstein.

CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer presented the honor for deep investigative and accountability reporting. He told the room, “The Journal’s courageous reporting on President Trump’s past relationship with financier Jeffrey Epstein triggered the release of the so called Epstein files, thousands of documents that might otherwise have remained hidden from the public.” He added that despite the president’s threat of a lawsuit, the Journal published a story about a provocative letter to Epstein bearing Trump’s signature.

Then Blitzer laid out how the president answered honest reporting. Trump quickly filed a $20 billion lawsuit against the Journal and revealed reporter Khadeeja Safdar’s home address. Her family had to be relocated. The Journal was kicked off Air Force One. The reporters kept filing their stories anyway.

The Subpoenas Built to Scare You

There is more. The Justice Department subpoenaed New York Times reporters and their own family members over their reporting on Trump’s new plane from the Qatari government.

Just before the event, U.S. District Court Judge Arun Subramanian made clear he believed the Trump administration violated protections written in plain black and white to uphold First Amendment principles. He pointed to sloppy legal work. He threatened sanctions against federal attorneys for failing to follow the law and for misleading the court in signed filings.

The whole point was to harass and intimidate reporters out of doing this kind of work. What Trump had his DOJ do is un-American.

His insults are nothing new. He seems to focus mostly on women. He does this over and over again because there are no consequences.

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You Dropped to a Knee

To all the journalist and reporters reading this, watch how this man plays you. He gives you no respect, and he expects the exact response we all watched you hand him. You dropped to a knee, like everyone else in the room, and you kissed his ring.

I understand thick skin. I understand the price of access, the need to sit in the right rooms with the right people to do your job. But here’s the deal. There’s a line, and that line was crossed years ago. Have some dignity.

Stop being part of the problem. Start reporting in a way that fixes the problem. Normalizing this man, and seating people like Karoline Leavitt at the head table, is unacceptable. Grow a backbone. Do your damn jobs.

Do Better. Be Better.

The hugs, the smiles, the selfies, the easy chuckles you trade for access, all of it as this man and his administration treat you the way they do, comes down to one thing. An excuse.

You may think you’re doing your job but in reality, he’s using you as one of his tools, and he’s doing it well. You’re too close to the forest to see the trees and you need to take a step back and re-evaluate who you are and why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Here is what a free press looks like when it remembers its purpose. The next time he stands in your room and mocks your work, one of you rises. One of you says enough. When he moves on the next reporter follows up. You don’t let him off the hook. You keep chasing the story he wants buried. You protect the colleague he targets. The whole country watches how you carry yourselves.

Show us you still have a spine.

If you are reading this and you were not sitting silent in that room, you still hold power. Send this to a reporter you respect and to the newsroom you rely on. Tell them plainly what you expect from a free press in a free country. Then keep watching, and keep speaking, until they earn back the trust their silence has cost.

Mitch Jackson, Esq.

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Related:

There Is a Government Website That Names Reporters as Media Offenders. Most Americans Have No Idea.

Reporters, Start Doing Your Damn Job Before It’s Too Late

Four New York Times Reporters. Four Doors. Four Subpoenas. Zero Crimes.

Reporters, Lean In. Read This. Then Read the Comments.

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