Big, if True
Finding faults with Trump’s presidency will be easy but journalists have to adjust methods and expectations or risk being drowned out with apathy.
The Donald Trump presidency may go down as the most closely scrutinized and reported on administration in U.S. history. Reporters, fed up with their lack of impact on an election and, frankly, embarrassed by having been so ineffective at reaching voters in a meaningful way, are going to use whatever power the 4th estate has left to watch and report his every move. But to be effective when we really need it, the media needs to adjust to the current political environment.
In just the first week since the election, Trump’s transition team has been top news nearly everywhere — for good reason. Until he is sworn in and starts signing bills, we really have no clue how he intends to govern other than a few vague outlines that I heard best described as “goals, not policy.” But as much as it worries me to see names like John Bolton, Newt Gingrich and Steve Bannon associated with some of the most influential appointed positions in government, I also feel like freaking out about it is mostly pointless.
It is too easy to have a problem with every move that Trump will make. It is too easy to point to hypocrisies, inconsistencies, dangerous seeming trends and power hungry infighting as proof of something nefarious going down at Trump Tower. It may be folksy wisdom but I feel like it was true during the election coverage — you can’t say that the sky is falling every day and expect that people will continue to take it seriously.
I know that Donald Trump doesn’t take it seriously.
Trump will do and say the things that he wants too, we know that. But the totality of all of the ridiculousness that came out of his campaign eventually turned into white noise.
A friend of mine told me that the Mainstream Media™ failed to tell the facts during the campaign; that MSM failed to make clear what was fact and what was opinion and did a disservice to voters. All of that is true to a certain degree. The media did fail to serve voters on some level and in cable news and new media, the line between reporter, blogger, columnist and pundit is too blurred. But i’d also argue that good, fact-based reporting is not hard to come by - it just tends to be hidden behind the flash and substance-less paparazzi style coverage.
The Access Hollywood story was probably the hardest blow Trump’s campaign ever took. But it dominated news cycles and page views and drowned out everything else until the John Podesta Email leak became the next big thing. And today, the coverage is all about Steve Bannon and Breitbart and all of the horrible things he has published to the alt-right website. The top news headlines all allude to racist or white-nationalist leanings. The thinking in newsrooms and on the left is that this should be big news.
But none of it is new. Bannon joined the Trump campaign earlier this year to replace an equally questionable figure in Paul Manafort and the media reported the same warnings about his character and motives. The problem is that the things that have been written about Bannon have also been written about Trump. So why would people care about the apparent Chief Strategist’s hateful rhetoric when they seemed to ignore or disregard the same warnings about our current President-elect?
No matter what is reported between now and inauguration day, Donald Trump will take the oath of office next year and he will have a full cabinet of his choosing and that will dictate the course of this country for at least four years — for better or worse. And during his term, it will still be vital that reporters do their job and cover it all in detail. The American people deserve to know who the men who will be running this country are, even if they never read about it or accept it. But the conversation needs to stay measured and exercise restraint.
Bannon has proven in the past to be a defiant, ruthless, and gruff personality who has a very distinct world view. But he wouldn’t be the first person like that to hold a position of power. He has openly said or presided over the publishing of a lot of wrong-headed and hateful things but I don’t know his mind or his heart. I suspect there’s nothing good in there but it’s only my feeling.
When those feelings are reported as hard facts it only undermines more substantial reporting elsewhere.
Reporters and editors would love to believe that it is still 1972 when hard nosed reporting and persistence took down a corrupt president. But the political climate is completely different than it was during Watergate. In 1972, the American people still had enough trust in government to be shocked about a political scandal.
Now our politicians openly revel in scandal and when they don’t, Wikileaks forces their hand. How ironic is it that in an age of more exposure and whistleblowing and excellent reporting we find that little of it has made a real impact. Julian Assange might feel good about himself for challenging authority and creating an avenue for a new level of transparency through Wikileaks, but all the revelations have done so far is normalize corruption.
Part of the problem is that the media has to re-contextualize what is and isn’t big news. If an news outlet still thinks pointing out that Steve Bannon is probably a bad dude is big time news then it has already forgotten the lesson of Election Tuesday. If it turns out that Trump and his cabinet really are a bunch of corrupt, self-interested goons, the media needs to be ready to report it.
But my fear is that when that day comes, people will already so tired of outrage that they brush it off as more liberal-MSM bias.
