Colorado Newsline: In the weeks after he assumed office, former President Donald Trump put reporters in the crosshairs when he labeled them “the enemy of the American people.”

He was following the authoritarian playbook, long consulted by the likes of Stalin and Hitler, but it was shocking to see such strongman rhetoric coming from an American leader, who swore an oath to a constitution that takes press freedoms pretty seriously.

The open animus toward journalists that Trump exemplified is increasingly a standard trait of leaders at all levels of American government, particularly, but not only, among Republicans. Hostility to the press coincides with the growing reliance by politicians on digital platforms such as social media to bypass journalists and communicate directly with constituents.

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