NEW YORK -- The U.S. Senate on Thursday unanimously approved a resolution affirming that "the press is not the enemy of the people."
The resolution offered by Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii drew on the words of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and President Ronald Reagan, among others, to champion the role of the free press, which it said is "integral to the democratic foundations of the United States." The resolution condemns attacks on the press "as an attack on our democratic institutions."
The move came after hundreds of newspaper editorial boards across the country answered a nationwide call Thursday to express disdain for President Donald Trump's attacks on the news media.
The campaign was set in motion by an editor at The Boston Globe, which argued in its own editorial that Trump's label of the media as the enemy of the people "is as un-American as it is dangerous to the civic compact we have shared for more than two centuries."
Trump denounced the effort, saying the Globe was in collusion with other newspapers.
"There is nothing that I would want more for our country than true FREEDOM OF THE PRESS," the president said in a tweet. "The fact is that the press is FREE to write and say anything it wants, but much of what it says is FAKE NEWS, pushing a political agenda or just plain trying to hurt people."
It was not clear how many newspapers participated. Marjorie Pritchard, the editor who launched the campaign, said earlier in the week that some 350 news organizations indicated they would, but she did not immediately return messages on Thursday. Even with the coordinated effort, there was some significant blowback from newspapers that wrote to say they would not participate.
The Radio Television Digital News Association called on broadcasters and web sites to express support. Since Monday, there have been 2,240 mentions of either "First Amendment" or "free press" by broadcasters across the country, said Dan Shelley, the group's executive director. One TV station, WPSD in Paducah, Ky., showed a copy of the First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of the press on its screen before every commercial during newscasts, he said.
"It has been a big source of conversation all across the country," Shelley said. "Just because people are talking about it, it's a victory in my book."
Editorial boards at the Portland Press-Herald in Maine and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and many places in between weighed in to support the effort.
"The true enemies of the people -- and democracy -- are those who try to suffocate truth by vilifying and demonizing the messenger," wrote the Des Moines Register in Iowa.
In St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch called journalists "the truest of patriots." The Chicago Sun-Times said it believed most Americans know that Trump is talking nonsense. The Fayetteville Observer in North Carolina said it hoped Trump would stop, "but we're not holding our breath."
The New York Times encouraged readers to subscribe to a local newspaper. "We're all in this together," the Times said.
Some newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, the Rome Daily Sentinel in New York and the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia contained editorials or columns explaining why they weren't joining the Globe's effort. Some worried that it played into the hands of Trump and his supporters who think the media is out to get him. The idea of a coordinated campaign simply left others cold, with one newspaper referring to a longtime rivalry.
"We prize our independence, both from government and from other media outlets," the New York Daily News wrote. "Coordination, especially with Boston, isn't in our nature."
There was also some scolding of the press -- from the press -- for letting distaste for Trump show up where it shouldn't in news stories.
"Just as his lack of restraint has often been the president's self-inflicted wound, the bias of some of the press has hurt journalism, at the very moment when it is most needed to save itself," said the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "It is time for a truce."
At the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md., where five staff members were killed by a gunman in June, editors said Thursday that they were not participating in the effort because they care more about what the community thinks than the president. But Trump can do some good by giving a Presidential Medal of Freedom to one of the slain employees, Wendi Winters, who had tried to stop the gunman by charging at him before being killed, they said.
"The president could use the occasion of presenting the medal to Wendi's family as a moment of change in his approach toward those whose job it is to question his presidency," the newspaper's editorial board wrote. "He could honor her work by expressing his belief in the importance of journalism to our country -- even when he feels unfairly treated."
Information for this article was contributed by Ted Anthony, Alanna Durkin Richer, Hannah Fingerhut, Skip Foreman, Amanda Kell, Jack Jones, Herb McCann, David Runk and Juliet Williams of The Associated Press.
A Section on 08/17/2018