Trump Targets Female Journalists Constantly—Why Are We Still Staying Silent?

When I was a political journalist in Australia before moving to Washington, there was an unwritten rule in the press gallery: if a politician went after one of us personally and unfairly, the rest of us closed ranks.

The instinct was to push back or repeat the question your colleague asked until we got an answer—not an insult. You’d seek to make it clear (respectfully, of course) that if someone sought to humiliate or intimidate a reporter simply for doing their job, it wasn’t about that individual; it was about the press as a whole.

Among the White House press corps, I sometimes wonder why it’s so different.

These are some of the most formidable and hardest-working journalists I’ve had the privilege of working alongside, yet Donald Trump has turned his vile attacks on them—particularly the female reporters—into something close to a routine.

The examples have become so frequent it can be hard to keep up.

CNN star Kaitlan Collins was branded the “worst reporter” and accused of “not smiling” enough; ABC News’ Mary Bruce was a “terrible” person for asking about the Epstein files; and Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucy was told “quiet, piggy!” for her questions about the child sex offender.