A RETIRED AIR FORCE general in El Salvador admitted in court last Friday that the country’s armed forces carried out the infamous El Mozote massacre in December 1981. This acknowledgement marks the first time the Salvadoran military has taken responsibility for the atrocity.

Over a period of days, the Atlacatl Battalion, a Salvadoran army unit created and trained by the U.S., slaughtered more than 800 civilian men, women, and children in several villages in the mountains near El Salvador’s border with Honduras. The Reagan administration immediately acted to protect its Salvadoran allies, engaging in a far-reaching coverup.

There was wholesale torture and rape, and many victims were burned alive. The level of cruelty is most comparable currently to the actions of the Islamic State. One survivor remembered hearing an officer threaten to murder a soldier who wasn’t willing to kill kids.

Today, Americans may see El Mozote as an obscure tale from the misty past. But this is not the case. In fact, this week’s final, complete confirmation of the events 38 years ago holds critical lessons about the Trumpist war on the media now.

Raymond Bonner, who broke the El Mozote story for the New York Times, says that assaults on journalism by the government have “gone to an extreme [under President Trump], but it’s certainly not new. … What happened to me is an example of attacks on reporting.”

The key things to understand about this war is, first, that it didn’t start with Trump, but rather with Richard Nixon almost five decades ago. Second, the right-wing fury at journalism has never been about the press’s many faults; instead, conservatives are most enraged when reporters do their job well. Third, officials who lie successfully are not punished, but are instead rewarded by the GOP apparatus for a job well done.