Media khatre mein hain: How Trump 2.0 could threaten America’s free press

The media has been a thorn in Donald Trump’s side since his first presidential term. But the stakes are higher now as Trump ramps up threats against the press, especially those who are critical of him. 

Amid these threats, news outlets such as the Washington Post and LA Times have bypassed their editorial boards to refrain from endorsing a presidential candidate. 

In the final episode of the three-part series Mandate 2024: US Edition, Sreenivasan Jain examines how the US election is not only an inflexion point for American democracy but also the news media. 

Sewell Chan, a journalist and editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, tells Jain, “We’ve never seen so concerted an attack on the press.” He says Trump’s playbook is less likely to witness the jailing of journalists, but Trump could follow a pattern – seen in India and elsewhere – using government agencies to penalise the media. 

Popular anchor Mehdi Hasan also says that Trump will “100 percent” come after the media. 

So how is Trump’s ‘authoritarian playbook’ likely to play out? Will Trump 2.0 increase the parallels between the Indian and American media landscape?

Watch our in-depth report.

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