Irish Examiner view: Who benefits from media gagging?

EU justice commissioner Didier Reynders said our defamation laws should be reviewed as they suppress the capacity to expose or even suggest corruption

Anti-coup protesters use fire extinguishers to reduce the impact of teargas fired by riot policemen in Yangon, Myanmar, yesterday. Picture: AP

Most of Donald Trump’s rallies followed a pantomime script. He used the “he’s behind you! he’s behind you!” line when he sensed his audience was amenable to a bout of media goading. Almost playfully offered, his fake-news tirades were malign in intent and directed at one of the few arms of American society prepared to challenge his dishonesty — as the subsequent impeachment vote confirmed. 

Even if that undermining was more successful than is comfortable, we can only speculate how those attacks might have evolved had he won a second term. He might not have gone as far as Mohammed bin Salman or Vladimir Putin, but he might have been tempted to follow the example of Myanmar’s junta, which revoked the licences of five media outlets to block coverage of anti-coup protesters being shot dead on streets.