Readers React: Sarah Huckabee Sanders has done journalists worldwide a grave disservice

To the editor: At a White House briefing on Aug. 2, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was twice given the opportunity to declare that the press is not the enemy of the people. This phrase has been used by the most notorious of world dictators in the Soviet Union, China, Nazi Germany and even the United States under Richard M. Nixon.

One of these days, Donald Trump will no longer be president, and Sanders will not be press secretary. She will probably find a high-paying job at Fox News but otherwise will be a pariah. Any time a journalist in the U.S. or abroad is harassed, threatened, harmed, imprisoned or even killed, those Americans who actually believe in the freedom of the press will recall the insidious characterization of reporters by Trump and Sanders to their everlasting shame.

No job in the world is worth trading in your integrity for a paycheck or a pat on the head from the boss.

Barbara H. Bergen, Los Angeles

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To the editor: So, we’ve got these enormous news-gathering organizations with hundreds of bureaus at home and abroad, monitored by media watchdog groups and every journalism school, all gathering at a secret meeting every other Thursday night in Iowa to synchronize their watches and come up with “fake news” stories — but miraculously, only Fox News reports the truth?

Fox News is not news, and neither is talk radio. But they give frustrated, intellectually lazy people nifty sound bites and slogans.

Democracy demands an informed public, not one that is titillated or pandered to. Trump evidently sees democracy and the rule of law as mere impediments.

Mike Scott, Lafayette, Calif.

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To the editor: Apparently, hostility by the media and constant negative reporting is Sanders’ fault. CNN’s Jim Acosta, the reporter who asked Sanders about Trump’s “enemy of the people” statements, left the press conference, saying, “I walked out … because I am totally saddened by what just happened. Sarah Sanders was repeatedly given a chance to say the press is not the enemy.”

I get it — it’s not about the news, it is about Acosta and his hurt feelings.

The media have been on an unending campaign against the president. The bias is breathtaking. They desperately need a devil’s advocate, someone to challenge what they say before it goes public.

Nathan Post, Santa Barbara

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