(CNN) Donald Trump's latest controversy is unleashing condemnation from Democrats, Republicans -- and journalists.
With Trump's call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, several of the nation's most esteemed journalists and influential news outlets have set aside traditional notions of balance and given themselves license to label the Republican front-runner a liar, a demagogue, a racist and worse.
Tom Brokaw, the veteran NBC News anchor, has called Trump's proposal "dangerous," and likened it to the Holocaust and the Japanese internment. On its front page, The New York Times has said Trump's idea is "more typically associated with hate groups." Dan Balz, of The Washington Post, has called Trump's rhetoric "demagogic," while BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith has informed staff that it is acceptable to refer to Trump on social media as a "mendacious racist," because, he said, those are facts.
Several others have said Trump's proposal poses a national security threat. "This is not small ball, actually. This matters," Richard Engel, the NBC News chief foreign correspondent, said Monday. "It is...a black spot on our collective foreign policy and our conscience. And it also just feeds into the ISIS narrative."
The willingness to use such language and draw such analogies represents a watershed moment in the media's coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign, several journalists and political observers told CNN. For the first time in six months, news organizations are abandoning concerns about impartiality and evenhandedness and stating what they believe are objective truths about the Republican's most popular presidential candidate.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/10/politics/donald-trump-media-backlash/index.html
With Trump's call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, several of the nation's most esteemed journalists and influential news outlets have set aside traditional notions of balance and given themselves license to label the Republican front-runner a liar, a demagogue, a racist and worse.
Tom Brokaw, the veteran NBC News anchor, has called Trump's proposal "dangerous," and likened it to the Holocaust and the Japanese internment. On its front page, The New York Times has said Trump's idea is "more typically associated with hate groups." Dan Balz, of The Washington Post, has called Trump's rhetoric "demagogic," while BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith has informed staff that it is acceptable to refer to Trump on social media as a "mendacious racist," because, he said, those are facts.
Several others have said Trump's proposal poses a national security threat. "This is not small ball, actually. This matters," Richard Engel, the NBC News chief foreign correspondent, said Monday. "It is...a black spot on our collective foreign policy and our conscience. And it also just feeds into the ISIS narrative."
The willingness to use such language and draw such analogies represents a watershed moment in the media's coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign, several journalists and political observers told CNN. For the first time in six months, news organizations are abandoning concerns about impartiality and evenhandedness and stating what they believe are objective truths about the Republican's most popular presidential candidate.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/10/politics/donald-trump-media-backlash/index.html