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‘Death by a thousand cuts’: How experts warn Trump could use an authoritarian playbook to go after the media

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to go after much of the media in his second term, threatening to jail journalists, revoke broadcast licenses and target outlets with a flurry of lawsuits. It’s a playbook he’s threatened to use before.

In recent months on the campaign trail, Trump employed dark and violent rhetoric to attack the media — telling a crowd this week that he wouldn’t mind if journalists got shot — and sparking fears he will attempt to weaponize the government against the free press. Northwestern University professor Olga Kamenchuk said recent decisions by the billionaire owners of The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times to halt planned endorsements of Vice President Kamala Harris appeared to be an example of indirect pressure and self-censorship. Mikhail Zygar, a Der Spiegel columnist and former Russian journalist, recently wrote in his newsletter The Last Pioneer that when Vladimir Putin dismantled the free press in Russia, “he didn’t even have to get his hands dirty.”

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