The night of July 15 was a dramatic one for Turkey as a faction of their military attempted a coup. I had CNN on. The split screen showed shaky iPhone videos of protesting crowds on one side, and Anderson Cooper’s grim face on the other. The shouting and gunshots from the videos punctuated his sentences.

Then the images on the screen switched to the CNN Turk newsroom. The newsroom was vacant. An opened MacBook still sat on the anchor’s desk; papers were still spread out in small stacks; a coffee mug sat abandoned.

Turkish soldiers had raided CNN Turk and forced the channel off air. A CNN Turk employee had videoed the takeover. Young Turkish soldiers tricked out in Kevlar vests with long, black guns shouted orders and corralled people toward the exits.

I was appalled. The thought of a news channel being physically forced off air is inconceivable in America. The freedom of the press is firmly granted to us in the First Amendment, and there are slews of laws meant to protect our journalists. Yet, we take our free press for granted. The U.S. government doesn’t have to censor the press; Americans attack and diminish the press ourselves.

Blaming the “liberal media” or the “mainstream media” has morphed into “the boy who cried wolf.” Donald Trump especially loves to attack the “MSM.”

But there is no “mainstream media.” There is no “they.” When most people refer to “the media,” they mean the big networks and newspapers. How can a few networks and a handful of newspapers be the whole entire media? The media is made up of thousands of blogs, websites, podcasts, local newspapers, newsletters and all the various social media platforms. The list goes on and on. The media is not a monolithic entity out to get you or attack your ideals and values. So stop blaming “the media” for all of your political woes. Blaming reporters of “liberal media bias” every time they report on something you don’t agree with hinders their ability to do their job. It erodes their hard-earned journalistic integrity. It’s way to silence news you don’t like.

Donald Trump and his surrogates love to attack the news media. Kellyanne Conway uses her interviews as platforms to squabble with the reporters interviewing her. Trump supporters have also jumped on the bandwagon. At Trump rallies, supporters are aggressive towards reporters. They yell, jeer and get into the reporters’ faces. This aggression towards our press is incredibly dangerous. We don’t need armed soldiers to storm our nation’s newsrooms; American citizens are taking care of that aggression themselves.

Several news outlets were famously barred from covering Trump early on in his campaign. This blatant act of censorship shocked many, especially those in the media business. In the past several days, Trump has revved up his attacks against the news media. He’s threatened to sue The New York Times for its story on his alleged sexual assaults.

Now lets be clear, Trump isn’t suing The Times because he fears for his reputation; he’s suing because he wants to silence the story. The New York Times has a right granted to it by our Constitution. If Trump supporters get to carry their guns, then The Times gets to report on Trump’s lewd behavior.

This new hyper-aggression towards our press is alarming. Journalists are here to serve the people. Many of our journalists are outstanding individuals who risk their lives to report stories. They’re the ones wading through angry crowds in Egypt, watching children die in Haiti, trudging through flood waters in New Orleans and riding down sniper-lined roads in Baghdad. They’re the ones who report from the front lines of our planet. We owe them some respect.

The press in America isn’t something we should be taking for granted. If we lived in a country like Turkey, our reporters could be forced off the air for reporting on an important event. We don’t respect the fact that we have a press that can speak out against the government.

Stop crying wolf. Stop denouncing and criticizing cold hard facts. The act of self-censoring our press defeats the purpose of the U.S. even having a free press in the first place. A free press is a privilege that many people in the world don’t have, and Americans are squandering it. Stop attacking the press for doing their jobs. 

Chandler Gory is a sophomore majoring in political science. Her column runs biweekly.