Amal Clooney slams US President Trump over attacks on media

TIL Desk/World/Washington/ Human rights attorney Amal Clooney took a swipe at US President Donald Trump while warning about the diminishing freedom of the world’s press.

Clooney made her comment without directly naming Trump, but she left little to the imagination. “Today, the country of James Madison has a leader who vilifies the media, making honest journalists all over the world more vulnerable to abuse,” Clooney said.

Clooney was speaking at the Global Conference for Media Freedom, held in London. She serves as the British government’s envoy on media freedom. Earlier in her speech, Clooney cited Madison as being a staunch protector of the free press.

“As James Madison — one of America’s founding fathers — warned us more than 200 years ago, the right to a free press is the only effectual guardian of every other right. Yet today journalists are under attack like never before,” Clooney said.

Clooney also criticised world leaders more generally when speaking about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist who was killed in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey in October.