In what has been described as a “multi-pronged attack,” President Donald Trump is intensifying his criticism of the news media.

Trump accuses the press of being an “enemy of the American people.” At the same time he is blocking reporters from covering news events at the Oval Office, tossing journalists out from their working spaces in the Pentagon and investigating public media companies.

In what sounds like a childish temper tantrum, Trump blocked Associated Press reporters from covering Trump at White House events for two days after the AP insisted on continuing to call the body of water just south of the United States as the Gulf of Mexico instead of the Gulf of America, the new name Trump assigned via executive order.

In reality, “Gulf of Mexico” is what all countries surrounding the body of water south of the U.S. call it.

As NBC said in a report from last week, “Trump and his administration have moved beyond his usual anti-news media rhetoric to take a variety of actions that have limited some outlets’ access while hitting others with lawsuits and directives that critics call a naked attempt to bend news coverage to his will.”

Jeff Portnoy, veteran Honolulu attorney who often represents local news outlets, says Trump’s positions are worrisome.

“Trump has proven he is the foremost anti-media and anti-First Amendment president in history,” Portnoy said in an interview last week. Portnoy added that Trump has extended his threats to using the Federal Communications Commission to go after the broadcast licenses of major broadcast outlets belonging to CBS.

“His threats are legend,” Portnoy said.

He recalled the now 50-year-old battles Frank Fasi would have with the news media. Portnoy recalled the disputes between this reporter and Fasi resulted in the case “Borreca vs. Fasi,” in which the then-afternoon statewide newspaper, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, sued Fasi for not allowing me to cover open public news conferences. Fasi said the news reports were slanted, something the newspaper denied.

According to independent reports, Fasi claimed that “his ostracism of Borreca and ultimatum to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin are not invasions of freedom of the press.”

Federal judge Sam King in 1974 disagreed, ruling in favor of the news media, but Fasi’s attacks on the press continued throughout his career.

Attacking the news media, no matter how unjustified, became the political trend during the era of former GOP president Richard Nixon. Nixon may be gone, but today it is Trump getting coverage for attacking the news media.

As Judge King said years ago, politicians know how to shade their own recounts of events to make themselves look good. Left unsaid is that accounts by politicians like Trump may have no relationship to the facts of what happened.

“Manipulation of the news is a highly developed technique, utilizing staff news specialists, self-serving handouts, programmed appearances, and positive and negative reinforcement in dealing with reporters and news media,” said the good Judge King in his opinion.

Going back to Trump, even conservative columnist Brit Hume finds fault with the president’s actions banning the Associated Press, calling it an “attack on press freedom” and “unconstitutional.”

Today under Trump, such descriptions are the new reality.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.