End intimidation and assaults on journalists

This editorial is from the Mercury News in San Jose:

When Montana congressional candidate Greg Gianforte grabbed a reporter by the neck with both hands, slammed him to the ground and punched him, politics in this country crossed a dangerous line.

It was perhaps the inevitable result of a growing demonization of the press led by President Donald Trump, who has branded journalists’ “fake news” as “ the enemy of the people.”

The intimidation and assaults on journalists must end. We have a job to do. That often means asking tough questions. And we shouldn’t fear for our physical safety when we do it. For if we cannot pursue stories about candidates and elected officials, our democracy will not survive.

In other countries, journalists risk their lives to report on their governments. But our Founding Fathers recognized the key role a free press plays in ensuring an informed electorate.

In modern day America, journalists have died doing their jobs. Chauncey Bailey was gunned down in Oakland while investigating the Black Muslim Bakery. Arizona Republic investigative reporter Don Bolles died from a car bombing in 1975. But they weren’t killed by their government.

Until now, government intimidation and assaults on reporters have been something that happens all too often in other countries. Now it’s happening here.

A reporter was arrested after shouting questions at Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price. Another was pinned against the wall by two security officials after he tried to ask a question of a member of the Federal Communications Commission.

And now Gianforte, who won Thursday’s election despite the assault. Fox News reporter Alicia Acuna, along with her producer and photographer, witnessed the incident. They had set up to interview Gianforte when reporter Ben Jacobs of the Guardian walked in and asked the candidate to comment on the Congressional Budget Office’s evaluation, released that day, of the House Republican health care plan. Jacobs was asking an excellent question. Yet, when he held up a recorder and persisted, Gianforte came unhinged. As Gianforte moved on top of Jacobs, he began yelling something to the effect of, ‘I’m sick and tired of this!’

There’s no excuse. Not in this country.