Trump Expands Press Freedom By Eliminating Sources

President Donald Trump endorsed a broad expansion of press freedom Friday, freeing journalists from the costly and dangerous practice of obtaining information. The initiative followed the Justice Department’s withdrawal of subpoenas seeking testimony and phone records from three New York Times reporters who examined security concerns surrounding a Boeing 747 offered by Qatar for presidential use. U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian criticized prosecutors for using subpoenas as an opening move and for also pursuing records belonging to reporters’ relatives, a traditional investigative technique known as widening the definition of journalism until everyone is under investigation.

Trump said the withdrawn demands demonstrated his administration’s commitment to protecting reporters from the sources on whom reporting has historically depended. “We love journalists, tremendous people, but sources are very dangerous because they tell reporters things, and then suddenly the newspapers have information the government did not give them,” Trump said. “Under my plan, reporters will be protected from information, which is the strongest press protection anybody has ever had.” Officials said the new source-free journalism model would permit reporters to investigate the government through approved methods, including reading press releases, admiring official photographs and asking questions whose answers are already displayed on laminated cards. Confidential sources will receive additional privacy protections by being made too professionally, financially and legally terrified to contact anyone.

Justice Department officials emphasized that subpoenas aimed at journalists do not target journalists, just as searching a person’s home merely targets the suspicious furniture temporarily surrounding that person. The administration also introduced a streamlined national security standard under which any fact that embarrasses the president may be treated as classified, while any flattering claim remains public even if it was invented during breakfast and corrected before lunch. Officials said the policy would reduce leaks by eliminating the distinction between unauthorized disclosure and inconvenient accuracy, allowing the public to receive government information from the government officials best positioned to approve it. Americans now have a fully independent press, liberated from sources, evidence, undisclosed facts and the reckless expectation that journalism should reveal anything the government has not already announced.

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