Feb. 27 (UPI) — Having spent eight years in the White House in today’s modern political climate, former President George W. Bush said Monday that he came to view the news media as an “indispensable” part of a functioning democracy.
The 43rd American president emphasized the media’s watchdog role in an interview Monday with Matt Lauer on NBC’s morning news program, Today.
Bush’s defense of U.S. news media followed what’s becoming an increasingly contentious relationship between outlets and President Donald Trump. Earlier this month, Trump labeled the collective news media as an enemy of the American people.
“I considered the media to be indispensable to democracy,” Bush said with a laugh, after being asked whether he ever considered journalists enemies. “We need an independent media to hold people like me to account.”
“Power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive,” he continued. “It’s important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power.”
Though he is only eight years removed from office, Bush said the information climate has evolved substantially with the advent of social media channels and additional news outlets.
“It is hard to unify the country, though, with the news media being so split up,” he said. “When I was president [the media] mattered a lot more because there was like three [news networks]. Now there is all kinds of information being bombarded out, and people can say things anonymously. It’s just a different world.”
On Saturday, Trump announced that he would not attend April’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner — an annual event honoring the press’s relationship with the White House. The last president to miss the dinner was Ronald Reagan in 1981, when he was still recovering from an assassination attempt a month earlier.
Before the president decided not to attend, multiple news agencies had already canceled traditional parties for the event due to Trump’s constant disparagement of the more critical news outlets and his nonstop dismissals that they are only pushing “fake news.”
