Editing Demagogue (section)

===Attacking the news media===
Because factual information reported by the press can undermine a demagogue's claims and standing among followers, modern demagogues have attacked the press intemperately. At times, demagogues have called for violence against newspapers who opposed them. Some have claimed that the press was acting secretly in the service of moneyed interests or foreign powers or that newspapers had a personal vendetta against them. Huey Long accused the New Orleans ''Times–Picayune'' and ''Item'' of being "bought", and had his bodyguards rough up their reporters. {{Citation needed|date=July 2023}} Oklahoma governor [["Alfalfa Bill" Murray]] (1869–1956) once called for a bomb to be dropped on the offices of the ''Daily Oklahoman''. Joe McCarthy accused ''[[The Christian Science Monitor]]'', the ''[[New York Post]]'', ''[[The New York Times]]'', the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'', ''[[The Washington Post]]'', the ''[[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]]'', and other leading American newspapers of being "Communist smear sheets" under the control of the Kremlin.{{r|Luthin|page=309–314}}