{"id":16478,"date":"2017-04-27T00:10:41","date_gmt":"2017-04-27T00:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/?p=16478"},"modified":"2023-09-26T00:20:30","modified_gmt":"2023-09-26T00:20:30","slug":"donaldson-shares-lessons-learned-from-trump-era-hostility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/2017\/04\/27\/donaldson-shares-lessons-learned-from-trump-era-hostility\/","title":{"rendered":"Donaldson shares lessons learned from Trump-era hostility"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY COLLEEN KEANE<\/strong>
\nSPECIAL TO THE TIMES<\/p>\n

LAS CRUCES\/MESILLA, NM \u2013 U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said and tweeted that journalists are the enemy of America.<\/p>\n

Former White House correspondent Sam Donaldson told a roomful of New Mexico reporters and writers last Saturday nothing could be further from the truth.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, you are his enemy!\u201d he told the group, many of whom were receiving regional awards that night for stories and books they wrote last year.<\/p>\n

Standing tall with that familiar intense gaze, his voice boomed at times in the small banquet room at the La Posta restaurant in Old Mesilla, as he pressed his point.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are his enemy by bringing out facts. He understands this. He\u2019s afraid of you. But, don\u2019t be afraid of him and don\u2019t worry what he calls you,\u201d advised Donaldson.<\/p>\n

Donaldson was the keynote speaker during the New Mexico Press Women awards banquet.<\/p>\n

It was the last event of the two-day annual conference titled \u201cMedia Literacy in a Post-Truth Society.\u201d<\/p>\n

During his talk, Donaldson underscored that there is no such thing as an \u201calternative fact,\u201d a reference coined by President Trump\u2019s counselor Kellyanne Conway.<\/p>\n

Digging up facts, reporting and writing about them was a major theme that weaved through the conference that drew about 100 participants, who included journalists, fiction and non-fiction short story writers, children book authors and poets.<\/p>\n

To counter the notion of alternative facts, Donaldson stressed, \u201cBe fierce advocates for facts! Facts are stubborn things. They are not amenable to being changed. It is either a fact, or it is not a fact!\u201d<\/p>\n

Donaldson was born and raised on a New Mexico ranch in Dona Ana County. He started a career as a news reporter in 1967 that continued steadily for more than four decades.<\/p>\n

Working as a White House correspondent, a co-anchor with Diane Sawyer on ABC\u2019s Primetime Live and other news programs, he covered the civil rights movement, Watergate burglaries and hearings, congressional debate on Medicare, the Vietnam war, partisan budget battles (to name some), as they unfolded and interviewed every president from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

Donaldson mentioned he also interviewed Donald Trump on ABC\u2019s Prime Time Live. But that was before Trump ran for president. Questioning Trump on his dwindling assets at the time, Donaldson brought attention to failed business deals sparking the same kind of attacks journalists have been getting during Trump\u2019s campaign and first 100 days in office.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe called me rude and I was out to get him,\u201d recalled Donaldson.<\/p>\n

Prior to the Trump administration, Donaldson looked back on his years on Capitol Hill expressing pride in the U.S. and how it was governed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had the best years. I watched government work because people got together,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

Giving an example he mentioned a congressional battle in 1996 under the Clinton administration that ended with a negotiated budget.<\/p>\n

Donaldson said lawmakers came up with a joint agreement because they had the best interest of the American people in mind.<\/p>\n

Speaking candidly, he noted White House coverage today is a different beat altogether.<\/p>\n

He mentioned that today\u2019s coverage is bringing out questions that have probably been asked before, but not as often as they are now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a (journalism) debate going on right now on whether or not Donald Trump (or anyone for that matter) should be called a liar when he says something that is obviously not true,\u201d said Donaldson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not necessary,\u201d he advised again, bringing up the power of fact gathering and how facts talk for themselves.<\/p>\n

Giving an example, he stated, \u201cWhen Trump said, \u2018We have the highest crime rate in this country in 47 years!\u2019 Well, that is not true according to the best evidence that we have, which is FBI statistics. The FBI statistics say we have the lowest crime rate in the last 47 years, except for a bump up in murder rate in 2015.\u201d<\/p>\n

A panel of reporters who cover local news and US\/Mexico border relations and issues shared ways they dig deep on stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou find these meeting points where ideas could converge. It\u2019s my job to bring meeting points to the surface,\u201d noted panelist Lauren Villagran, southern New Mexico correspondent for the Albuquerque Journal.<\/p>\n

To give an example, Villagran shared a story she wrote for the Journal about a conservative rancher who had run-ins with environmentalists. But, they had something in common \u2013 neither wanted a wall built on the border.<\/p>\n

Historian Yolanda Chavez-Leyva noted that these real life stories counter the narrative coming out of the White House that the border is filled with \u201cbad hombres\u201d and that southern towns are \u201cground zero.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn telling the stories of the people who live at the border, there will be a historical record of the truth,\u201d Chavez-Leyva told her audience.<\/p>\n

Chavez-Leyva participated in a panel called La Manda Fronteriza: Standing Firm on the Border-Frontera Truth Telling with award-winning novelist Denise Chavez and author David Romo, son of Mexican immigrants, who writes eloquently about the renaissance of the frontier spirit.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the journalists, writers and poets in the audience, Romo advised, \u201cAs a human being try to recover the lost stories and fight all the de-humanizing narratives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Romo holds a Ph.D. in borderland history.<\/p>\n

Chavez, the moderator of the panel, called for everyone to tell their own stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell the truth that only you can tell,\u201d she stated.<\/p>\n

After his talk on Saturday night, Donaldson, who is 83, gave the dozens of journalists and writers the same parting message.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s up to you now!\u201d he stressed.<\/p>\n

The New Mexico Press Women gave awards to authors and journalists in several categories: fiction and non-fiction books, children\u2019s books, news stories and features, to name some.<\/p>\n

Several stories published in the Navajo Times were among the communication contest winning entries.<\/p>\n

For more information, newmexicopresswomen.org.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Protest in Gallup<\/strong><\/p>\n

NAVAJO TIMES | DONOVAN QUINTERO<\/p>\n

Activists hold up white sheets with handwritten words on them at a protest over a painting of the late Larry Casuse Tuesday in Gallup.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY COLLEEN KEANE SPECIAL TO THE TIMES LAS CRUCES\/MESILLA, NM \u2013 U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said and tweeted<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16481,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16478\/revisions\/16481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}