EDITORIAL: Donald Trump raises the stakes in his war with the media

His supporters in the heartland were likely cheering the move, but Donald Trump’s decision last week to escalate his war with the media was imprudent and ill-advised.

The president on Friday broke with long-standing protocol and barred a handful of news outlets from attending a White House briefing. Those pushed to the outside looking in included journalists from The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CNN, the BBC, Politico and Buzzfeed.

“Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties,” said Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times.

Then again, we’ve never had a man like Mr. Trump in the White House.

None of this should be particularly surprising. The president wears his contempt for the press as a badge of honor — and many of his faithful feel the same. Just two weeks ago, Mr. Trump held a news conference at which he excoriated the political media as “dishonest,” among other things. During the campaign, he routinely banned from events reporters working for certain outlets in his disfavor.

Now the confrontations appear to be escalating. Earlier this month, he branded the “fake news” media the “enemy of the people” — another example of his rhetoric racing ahead of his contemplation.

The real risk here is that the president and his staff make it more difficult for reporters to gather and synthesize information about the activities of public actors and agencies. Transparency and accountability go hand in hand. Like them or not, media outlets — regardless of their perceived political affiliations — serve a vital role in fostering debate and providing information that Americans need to make decisions about serious policy issues.

As Trevor Thrall noted recently in Reason magazine, Trump’s high-handedness with the Fourth Estate threatens to “weaken the ability of the press to play the role of watchdog and critic envisioned by the Founders and embodied in the First Amendment.”

If Mr. Trump relishes confronting reporters or media outlets that he believes treat him unfairly, so be it. That’s fair game. But going so far as to make it White House policy to deny access to “black-listed” journalists or publications isn’t good for the long-term health of his presidency or the country.