United States: Trump’s reprehensible treatment of women journalists continue ahead of November elections

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September 11, 2020, Michigan, United States -- President of the United States Donald Trump is notorious in his treatment of journalists, especially by making demeaning remarks against women journalists. Intolerance of Donald Trump and his staff once again took stage yesterday when they kicked out New York Times reporter Kathy Gray who was following Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Michigan. After posting on social media about the crowds and the lack of masks among the thousands of attendees, Kathy was tracked down by the campaign staff and was escorted out.

Donald Trump’s clashes with media outlets and journalists are one consistent interaction people have grown to expect from his presidency. He coined phrases like “Fake News” for his supporters, and the more positive encouragement he received from those phrases, the more he heightened the attacks.

The way Mr. Trump treats the press when they challenge his administration, specifically female journalists and women of colour have been on the spotlights during his press briefings following the Covid-19 outbreak.

A press briefing held in the White House’s Rose Garden involved an interaction with CBS News’ Weijia Jiang, a Chinese-American journalist, where the president told her to ask China instead of her own country about its reaction to the coronavirus.

“Sir, why are you saying that to me specifically? That I should ask China?” Weija challenged the president. He went on to call her question “nasty” before moving on to another reporter.

In April, he locked horns with PBS Newshour’s Yamiche Alcindor. When she questioned him on earlier statements he had made about medical equipment, Trump responded by refusing to admit he had ever made the comment, and then proceeded to tell the journalist to “act a little more positive”.  

Instead of answering questions about his government’s response to Covid-19 and he shifted the attention to the capability of Yamiche in her journalism, calling her an inadequate journalist Trump said: “That’s why you used to work for the Times and now you work for someone else,” and ordered Yamiche to “Be nice. Don’t be threatening.”

This was not the first instance when Trump verbally insulted Yamiche, in November 2018 he accused Yamiche of asking a “racist question” when she questioned whether his definition of nationalism is hidden in “white supremacy”. Priorly, November 2018 showed multiple instances where the president insulted black women journalists. CNN’s Abby Phillip’s question  was called a “stupid question” and the president said “I know this because I follow you and you always ask very stupid questions”. He also called CNN’s April Ryan a “loser” who doesn’t know “what the hell she’s doing”.

Mr. Trump has been known to be short tempered towards people who question him on hard to answer topics but the fact that he has been vile towards particularly women journalists of color in forms of gendered attacks demonstrates some misogynistic and racist tendencies the US population sees online and on the street every day.

The Coalition For Women In Journalism finds such treatment by the President of the United States who has sworn to protect the Constitution, including freedom of the press as prescribed in the First Amendment utterly unacceptable. Vile comments against women journalists which seem to be designed to silence them by belittling and humiliating them is in no way in accordance with the duties of the leader of a country which champions freedoms. We would like to remind Mr. President that he, like all other presidents before him has no control over the press and the right to information of the public. In calling out the unprofessional behavior of President Trump we stand with all women journalists in the US who have been discouraged by comments and treatments of the Trump administration.