Arthur SolomonArthur Solomon

Hey, all you media trainers and anger control experts: the Republican Party needs you.

The most recent GOP candidate requiring help is Greg Gianforte, the Republican candidate in Montana’s special Congressional election, who was charged with misdemeanor assault Wednesday after attacking a reporter for asking a question about the CBO’s scoring of the health bill.

According to a story in the New York Times, Ben Jacobs, a reporter for The Guardian, said the episode occurred during an interview at Mr. Gianforte’s campaign headquarters. Mr. Jacobs said Mr. Gianforte “body-slammed” him when pressed on a question about the Republicans’ healthcare bill.

Of course, Mr. Gianforte’s PR people gave an entirely different account of the situation — perhaps auditioning for a position on Trump’s staff or for a job at a top-five PR agency — blaming the reporter. Unfortunately for Gianforte’s spokesperson, there were other reporters who witnessed what happened. After an investigation, misdemeanor assault charges were filed.

It seems that only Republicans physically threaten reporters:

In 2014, a New York GOP Congressman, Michael Grimm, threatened to throw a NY1-TV political reporter Michael Scotto off the balcony of the U.S. Capitol because Grimm didn’t like a question. News reports quoted Grimm as saying, “I’ll break you in half.”

In 2016, NBC’s Katy Tur, after being personally verbally attacked by Donald Trump, had to be escorted safely to her car by a secret service agent, when the crowd at a rally threatened her.

The threats against Ms. Tur were personally instigated by Trump, who obviously is so thin-skinned that he can’t control himself when asked a perfectly sensible question by a reporter the President dislikes. It’s as if no one told him that the Washington press corp. standards were different from those of the gossip reporters who catered to him during his playboy days.

Sports reporters, in particular, have been treated like trash by many athletes. They’ve been spit upon and called names that equaled anything I heard when I was in the Army. Breaking News: the way some athletes act when they are making public appearances is not the same way they act in the locker room or during press conference rehearsals. Ever wonder why the same athletes are quoted daily in media stories? It’s because they understand the reporter’s job and don’t treat the media like vermin.

I know what it’s like to be threatened for asking valid questions that upset people. Prior to moving on to a political PR firm, my first job was as a sports reporter was with a New York City daily, covering low level sporting events.

While covering the workout of a high school football team, I heard the coach — also a teacher at the school — tell his linemen to throw dirt into the eyes of opposing linemen.  When I questioned the coach about his instruction he chased me around the locker room and had to be restrained by several members of his team who told me, “You better leave before he gets his hands on you.” When I asked a college athletic director how he could justify asking for more athletic scholarships when tuition for non-athlete students was rising, he menacingly started to approach me before I retreated from his office. Both of these articles were spiked by my supervising editor, but today, these stories would be readily used. That’s good for journalism and bad for PR people who get paid to muddy facts at best and lie at the worst.

Journalism has changed — much for the better — but right wing news organizations still spike stories that they think will harm Trump.

Even during his journalist “enemies list” days, Nixon was not a threat to freedom of the press. He never publicly attacked reporters at rallies, threatened to change the libel laws or riled up crowds to the point where secret service agents had to protect reporters.

Trump is different and dangerous. He’s a genuine threat to freedom of the press. He thinks that denigrating journalists will stop them from reporting what they see and learn. No wonder Trump is so fond of Putin and other strongmen.

Studies show how little Americans know about history. And that’s a serious danger. Books about the rise of Nazism offer many similarities regarding what’s happening in Trump World, and near the top of the list is eliminating a free press and having propagandists spread conspiracy theories and lies. Anyone listen to Sean and Rush lately? Or Marryanne Conway or Sean Spicer?

Trump keeps calling stories “fake news” and calls reporters liars and worse. But that doesn’t prevent journalists from doing their jobs.

Greg Gianforte’s manhandling of a reporter in Montana for asking a question the candidate didn’t like was physical. But it’s not much different than Trump riling up his supporters by accusing them of reporting lies and singling out individual reporters by name. The secret service already had to escort one reporter to safety. If the President isn’t more careful with his words bodily harm to reporters by Trump hot heads is certain to eventually happen. And like the Washington swamp that he has not drained, the president will be responsible.

There will always be PR people — like the one working for Gianforte — who will fabricate what happened. And like the swamp in Washington, that type of communications environment must be drained.

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Arthur Solomon was a senior VP at Burson-Marsteller. He now is a contributor to public relations and sports business publications, consults on PR projects and was on the Seoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at [email protected].