Trump Warned the Media: This Is War! And That's Not Fake News

No 1 Certain Election Result amp160Media Under PressureHere39s a big head39samp160up for media mavens in case you haven39t already noticed The times they are a39changing amp160With apologies to Bob Dylan I would suggest that the US has now joined the rest of the world with a newly elected leader who regards the media as one would a gnat If it annoys you swat it amp160Swat it hardThis puts us squarely in the global mainstream of authoritarianism especially regarding freedom of speech amp160Out of curiosity and a bit of masochism I counted the number of nations with significant levels of press controls amp160On my first pass the total came to 145In short of the 197 sovereign countries in the world the great majority have governments that to one extent or another attempt to regulate and control the various forms of mediaamp160 True freedom is rare and getting rarerAmong the most repressive for press freedoms are in alphabetical order by countryruler EgyptAbdel Fattah elSisi HungaryViktor Orban IranHassan Rouhani PhillipinesRodrigo Duterte PolandAndrzej Duda RussiaVladimir Putin TurkeyRecep Tayyin Erdogan VenezuelaNicolas MaduroDonald Trump39s list of role modelsAnd there you have it amp160Aamp160list or rulers who can show our next President how to manage the mediaamp160 He39ll be off to a good start having promised to sue The New York Times and to block the ATampampT takeover of Time Warner amp160Not to mention the socalled enemies list that might or might not be realFollowUp Note amp160Whatever happened to the tradition of Presidents visiting allies amp160Maybe it39s because Angela Merkel just won39t curtsy amp8230 and Theresa May lost her majority amp160Instead Trump is headed to Poland and he39s planning a facetoface with Russia39s dictatorSo what39s Trump going to do or say in Poland and at the G20 meeting amp160In Poland he39ll ask in private quotGot any helpful suggestions at shutting down the 39fake39amp160mediaquotIn Hamburg at the G20 after insulting Angela Merkel with another handdodge he39ll whisper to Vladimir Putin quotHey we did itamp160 What do I do nextquotBack in the USA he39ll tell the quotfakequot media quotWow I gave Vlad a really big piece of my mind and told him not to meddle with us anymorequotRandom NotesWhat has Trump launchedamp160 Is it a quotwar on the pressquotamp160 Or a quotwar on the truthquotamp160 Or a quotwar on the 1st Amendmentquotamp160 Well I believe it is a quotWar on American DemocracyquotThis is textbook authoritarianism it sure ain39t democracy anymoreSo Net Neutrality will go awayamp160 Lots of regulations will go away to be replaced by some pretty damn draconian moves on the horizonamp160 Great moves for certain media UHF counts anyoneamp160 Great ratings for any kind of TV distribution or any kind of social media amp8230 but at what costHow did we get here amp160Just ask Rush Hudson Limbaugh III and his copycats amp8230 all among the best paid in media amp160That quotvast rightwingquot conspiracy amp8230 nothing but a moneymakerWhat39s nextamp160 Vilifying Jeff Zucker amp8230 which raises the next set of questions amp160Is ATampampT pressuring Time Warner over CNN amp160Oh wait the column referenced at the top asked that question last yearAnd by the way every citizen will be issued a Twitter account that automatically joins the followers of therealdonaldtrumpquotClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Trump Warned the Media: This Is War! And That's Not Fake News

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Paul S. Maxwell

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Trump Warned the Media: This Is War! And That's Not Fake News

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