This article has been updated since its original publication.
President Trump has continually blasted the “fake news media” as being the “enemy of the people” for their routine bias in the service of a political cause. In response, media figures have routinely hit back against the president, saying his rhetoric will radicalize certain swaths of the public into violent action against reporters. Martha MacCallum of Fox News admits the rhetoric is “disturbing” to her.
Speaking with Politico’s “Women Rule” podcast earlier this fall, MacCallum said she found Trump’s swipes at the fake news media “disturbing,” and that, as a member of the media, she took it “personally.”
“When he points at the press in the back of the room and calls them the enemy of the people, that is wrong,” MacCallum said. “And it exacerbates the situation.”
On the president’s penchant for calling the media “fake news,” the Fox News anchor said, “I find it disturbing. I think it’s a mistake.”
While MacCallum takes issue with Trump’s rhetoric, she does not necessarily dismiss it as completely unwarranted, acknowledging that “there have been mistakes on all sides of this equation.”
“Often the media doesn’t cut him a break,” she said. “I think they, many times, don’t give him credit for anything. … I think it makes some members of the media unfair to him, and I think it makes him unfair in his broad strokes about fake news.”
On her own relationship with President Trump, MacCallum said that she tries to stay objective, noting that he never has attacked her for that reason.
“He has said to me, ‘Sometimes you’re nice to me; sometimes you’re not,’ which I take as a compliment,” she added. “Because that’s exactly the role that I see myself in. I do like to make sure that I’m being as objective as possible in covering him.”
The criticisms of President Trump’s rhetoric towards the media has stepped up in recent days due to the “mail bomber” shipping explosive devices to several Democratic Party leaders and anti-Trump activists. Though the suspect had far-right sensibilities, he had a history of criminal conduct going all the way back to the early-2000s and was far from being “radicalized” by President Trump.
Few media outlets have made that distinction and have instead used the moment to push an anti-Trump political message, with the Committee to Protect Journalists recently issuing a statement that condemned the president’s rhetoric.
“It would be reckless and dangerous for President Trump to continue his rhetorical assaults on the press and branding of journalists as enemies of the people after this spate of package bombs aimed at political figures and CNN,” said CPJ Executive Director Robert Mahoney in a statement.
While the CPJ conceded that Trump’s rhetoric does not directly incite violence, the organization feels the incendiary nature of it contributes to political violence.
“While we cannot say that Trump’s speech directly incites violence, it is clear that some people are influenced by it,” the statement continues. “Journalists across the country feel unsafe because of the constant hostility and belittling of their role in our democracy by the head of state. It needs to stop.”
Martha MacCallum will be co-anchoring election night coverage on Fox News.
UPDATE: The original article stated that Martha MacCallum is a Fox News “host,” but that was incorrect. Martha MacCallum is an anchor for Fox News. This article has been updated to reflect that.