As someone formerly of the journalism world, and who greatly respects journalists and the power of journalism — despite my own criticisms over the years regarding coverage of war, executive power, and indeed, political, or “horse race” journalism — I find it dismaying how “the media,” which can mean different things depending on who is leveling the charge, is castigated from every side in America.
First, you have the obvious flow of hate that comes from outright partisans who want “the media” to be on their side. That’s a charge I find rather easy to ignore. When the far-right partisans think of media, they’re thinking CNN, The New York Times, and so forth, who they believe are biased against Trump and conservatives. Fidelity to Trump is how they measure “objective news.” Or there’s the left partisans who are a bit more clever about their disdain for the “media,” which often means singularly The New York Times, who they believe is too damn squishy and centrist, and should also be an extension of their team, the Democratic Party.
Second, you have the centrists and/or anti-anti-Trump types, who castigate the media for being hyperbolic about Trump and the threat he and the Republican Party pose to the country writ large and particularly minority populations in particular. When these types think of the “media,” yes, they include The New York Times, but I tend to notice the castigation flows toward cable news (MSNBC more precisely), smaller outfits like Vox and Mother Jones, and of course, random, but popular, accounts on Twitter.
Third, and the one that I was thinking about while waking up this morning (my political junkie mind, folks) are the types who castigate the media in a somewhat similar fashion to the left, who think the media are too squishy and gun shy, for lack of a better phrase, about the threat Trump and the Republican Party faces. In other words, in contrast to the previous group, they think The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, ABC, NBC, etc. aren’t playing up the threat enough. This group tends to consist of Democratic pundits, centrist pundits, anti-Trump conservative pundits, academics, and so on, who think the media needs to be more full-throated and front-facing about the danger.
(There is a fourth category, of which I would say my criticisms belong to, which is the libertarian critique of the media on matters of war, power, horse race journalism (third parties), and so on.)
I want to zero in on the third category for today, and the reason it came up is because last night at his South Carolina rally, Donald Trump, who is the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination for the third time, gave what is surely a fanciful story about a member of NATO (the North Atlantic Treat Organization, the safeguard organization of the world, arguably, for the last 75 years) confronting him over “his threat not to defend members who fail to meet the trans-Atlantic alliance’s defense spending targets,” according to the AP.
“‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’” Trump recounted saying. “‘No I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.’”
Let me quickly pushback against Trump, obviously. On the substantive part, that’s not how NATO works, the countries aren’t paying directly into some “NATO fund.” He thinks the U.S. is getting “stiffed” by the other 30 countries who are part of NATO and they aren’t pulling their weight. But if he better understood how the financing works, and the fact that the U.S. is, obviously, a much larger country and economy than the other members, he wouldn’t make these ludicrous claims. Additionally, when Russia, which NATO was largely created to deter and protect against, is currently waging a war of aggression against Ukraine, to argue that Russia can just take another NATO country “because they aren’t paying their fair share” and “do whatever the hell they want” is grotesque. Trump defenders like to argue he’s anti-war; Trump’s position here is absolutely a pro-war sentiment, allowing Russia to escalate in Europe. Not to mention, “do whatever the hell they want” sounds like enabling worse than war: war crimes. Finally, it’s worth stating that the subtext of Trump’s claim is that we, the U.S., get nothing out of NATO, when in fact, every member (country) of NATO backed us up via NATO’s collective defense Article 5 after 9/11 and died alongside American soldiers in Afghanistan for nearly 20 years. On the less substantive point: It’s rich for Trump, of all people, to complain about people not paying their bills, when he is notorious for stiffing people.
Once Trump’s NATO remarks hit Twitter last night, scores of commentators and pundits across the spectrum agreed on an additional point beyond the ones I just made: the media is failing because those remarks ought to be on the front pages of every newspaper (digitally and in print) and running across cable news instead of horse race journalism and punditry about Biden’s age, for example. If only journalists in the media did this with Trump’s remarks about NATO and other remarks, the implication goes, then we would stave off the threat of a Trump second term as president. I also know there are anti-Trump conservatives in particular, like Tom Nichols, who believe Trump rallies should still be broadcast contra CNN and MSNBC’s policy it seems of not doing so in order for the American public to realize how deranged, demented, and dangerous Trump is.
My nuanced take is this: I agree and disagree. I agree that, of course, Trump’s NATO remarks should garner news coverage for how dangerous they are, and to push back against the falsities. After all, the goal of journalism is to inform and educate. But I disagree with the aforementioned implication. What drives all four criticisms of the “media” I outlined is this false assumption: the media’s power. It’s interesting because on one hand, people will argue the media’s power to shape events and people’s perceptions of those events, and on the other hand, argue that the media’s influence is waning, newspapers are dying, and nobody watches cable news anymore. That is the assumption, though, that if only the media did X, then Y would happen. You can swap in and out X and Y depending on the criticisms from the previous four groups I outlined. In the specific case of Trump, people think that if only the media treated Trump’s remarks with constant coverage and reporting for what they are — deranged, demented, and dangerous — then the American public, primarily voters, would not elect this man president for a second time.
But I don’t think it works like that! I believe in the power of the media to inform and educate, but that power only goes so far. Those who are criticizing the media on this front already aren’t voting for Trump, clearly. The vast majority of those who pay attention to what The New York Times or CNN are doing are either a.) already not voting for Trump or b.) are already voting for Trump and are paying attention for other reasons. Trump has a baked in national ceiling of voters around that 40-ish percent mark, and nightly coverage on cable news and weekly, or even daily, front page stories about Trump’s deranged remarks are not going to move that needle. Now, you may argue, and it’s a fair point, that national elections are so polarized now, the margins matter, i.e., one or two percent, or relatively speaking, a few hundred thousand “gettable” voters in key swing states, who might be influenced by remembering how deranged, demented, and dangerous Trump is. Perhaps! Although, getable voters probably aren’t “tuning in,” as it were, until a couple months out from voting in November, but I digress. I’m not arguing against covering Trump! The media should cover him constantly. I’m arguing against the perceived outsized power of the media to persuade people’s opinions on Trump.
I simply think people need to be more clear-eyed about the assumptions behind their vociferous feelings on why the media should cover Trump. Cover him because it’s the right thing to do from a journalism standpoint, not because you’re hoping it sways the election. (This could be an entirely separate post, but the difficult work is that “swaying” the election goes behind the role of journalism, and it’s the hard work of politics and political persuasion.)
Milam's Musings 