Free Press and Pressure

   Real estate execs -- some of them, anyway -- have long been known for their attitude that if you are not an advocate for their position, you are therefore an adversary, subject to attack. But journalists are neither advocates nor adversaries.  Reporters ask hard questions because they need to be asked, and information is sought on behalf of the public.
   We now have a real estate executive heading for the White House as President. This is a man who has shown that same attitude toward any and all of his critics, including journalists, for many years.
   "If you hit me, I will hit back," he has said many times.
   This may be an acceptable attitude in negotiating a real estate deal, but when carried forward to international diplomacy, it can easily have disastrous consequences.
   Meanwhile, that propensity to strike back at anyone and everyone who criticizes or disagrees in any way or in any degree shows a pettiness more common among schoolyard bullies than government officials.
   Or maybe not. If the quick reaction to disagreement underlies the advocate or adversary attitude so common among business moguls, then America is about to have a real estate mogul carrying that same policy to the White House.
   As noted in this column in October 2015, whenever a politician or business leader encounters unfavorable news coverage, he or she accuses the news media of being "unfair."
   The problem is that these hypersensitive people equate "unfavorable" with "unfair." To them, only favorable accounts of what they say and do are fair. All else is, by their definition, false, unreliable, biased, unfair, or any of several other adjectives they may use to vent their anger.
   It's similar to the anger shown by those caught with a hand in the cookie jar.
   Today, it seems journalists are reporting many incidents of political hands dipping into various cookie jars, and the politicians are venting similar anger by accusing news reporters of biased journalism.
   Put another way, reporters are advocates of truth and adversaries of corruption. They're fulfilling their First Amendment responsibility of keeping the public informed.
   Or to quote Michael Corleone, "This isn't personal. It's strictly business."