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The New York Times warns Trump not to call reporters ‘enemies of the people’

US President Donald Trump speaks about the economy on the South Lawn of the White House on July 27, 2018, in Washington, DC. (AFP photo)

The publisher of the New York Times has urged US President Donald Trump to stop attacking the American news media, saying it could "lead to violence" against reporters.

Arthur Gregg Sulzberger made the warning on Sunday after Trump described the US press as "enemies of the people."

"Spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, 'Enemy of the People.' Sad!"” Trump tweeted.

“The failing New York Times and the Amazon Washington Post do nothing but write bad stories even on very positive achievements,” the president added.

Trump’s comments came hours after a private meeting with Sulzberger at the White House on July 20th. Sulzberger went to the White House, accompanied by James Bennet, who oversees the editorial page of the Times.

Trump’s aides requested that the meeting be off the record, which has been the practice for such meetings in the past. But with Trump’s tweet, Sulzberger said the president put the meeting on the record, so Sulzberger said he decided to respond to Trump’s characterization of the media.

Sulzberger said he had accepted the meeting with Trump to raise concerns about the president's "deeply troubling anti-press rhetoric."

He said he told Trump that the phrase "fake news" was "untrue and harmful" but said he was "far more concerned about his labeling journalists 'the enemy of the people'."

"I warned that this inflammatory language is contributing to a rise in threats against journalists and will lead to violence," he said.

After Sulzberger's statement was made public, Trump appeared to respond, tweeting that media reporting on the "internal deliberations" of government "truly puts the lives of many, not just journalists, at risk."

The US president said the media was being "driven insane by their Trump Derangement Syndrome" and accused them of writing "bad stories even on very positive achievements."

After his election, Trump has repeatedly used the term “fake news” to cast doubt on critical media reports about his administration, often without providing any evidence to support his case.

As a candidate, Trump had pursued the same anti-media rhetoric threatening to "open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money."


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