Then-President Donald Trump continued to rise The Wall Street Journal when he spoke at the White House on April 19, 2020.
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In the second season, The New Yorker editor David Remnick said Donald Trump’s anger “has never been as strong as it has been against the press.” The president-elect has called the news media the “Enemy of the American people,” has threatened retribution against outlets that have covered negative people and has suggested that NBC, CBS and ABC should have their licenses revoked.
Marty Baron, former executive editor at Washington Postsaid he expects the incoming administration “to go after the press in every conceivable way … (using) every tool in the toolbox — and there are many tools.”
“I think (Trump) is salivating for the opportunity to prosecute and imprison journalists for leaking national security information — or what they would call national security information,” Baron said. “I expect that they will deny funding to public radio … and TV. And they will try to control the Voice of America and its parent company, the US Global Media Agency, as they did in the previous administration. , trying to turn it into a propaganda outlet.”
Remnick sees parallels between Trump’s approach to the media and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Both men, he said, challenged traditional notions of truth. “Putin’s regime shows that in the absence of truth, anything is possible,” Remnick said. “Lies have been coming from the White House for decades and decades. But Donald Trump has changed the game.”
Baron added that Trump’s targets go beyond the press: “The goal here is to suppress free expression by anyone … So this is just the first step. And I think people need to remember that.”
Interview highlights
At Washington Post‘s announcement in the week before the 2024 election that will not an endorsement one of the presidential candidates
Baron: I don’t think there is a good explanation for this decision 11 days before the election (other) than that (Post Jeff Bezos) is under pressure from Donald Trump about other interests, which are bigger than The Postespecially Amazon, which has many contracts with the federal government, especially in cloud computing, and Blue Origin, a commercial space company that is largely dependent on the federal government for these contracts. …
If this had been a decision I made three years ago, two years ago, a year ago, maybe six months ago, I would say good. It doesn’t matter to me whether the news organization likes it The Post make a presidential endorsement. Of course, people can make up their own minds. They don’t need it The Post to help them. But I don’t think there is any logical explanation for this decision other than “Don’t poke the bear.” And I think it’s an attempt to avoid chasing bears. And I did not succeed, because there is no reason to argue that it came Washington Post today is higher than before this decision. It is substantially lower. I have never seen a company’s reputation so damaged in such a short period of time. And I think this is a regrettable and very wrong decision on (Bezo’s) part.
At the media outlet facing the pressure
Remnick: If you look at the diminishing influence of the so-called mainstream press, and if you look at the statistics about trust in the press and the ecology of the press, the combination of economic pressures combined with Trump pressures has been of great concern to all of us. who participated in this activity. … The pressure is enormous. And Trump knows it. And he knows how to influence his politics in the most positive way.
Baron: When (Trump) talked about his victory in his first term, he mentioned the confidence he had in the mainstream press – he called it one of his greatest successes. … It’s not the only reason the trust in the press has declined. There are various reasons. … But a big factor is the fragmentation of the market and the fact that people can find any site that asserts a pre-existing point of view and conspiracy theory, no matter how crazy, they can find someone who is telling the truth.
The responsibility of the media in losing the trust of people
Baron: I don’t think we have accurately and adequately reflected the concerns of many Americans in this country. I am often asked if we have failed in the coverage of Donald Trump in 2015 and 2016. And I say that the biggest failure has happened before because we did not expect that this country could produce a candidate like Donald Trump. We do not know the level of grievance and anger towards the so-called elite, including and maybe especially the press – even if you look at the salaries of many journalists, they do not deserve to be elite. So I think we’re not doing a good enough job of getting out in the country and understanding the concerns of ordinary Americans. …
I am concerned that a segment of the journalistic community, if you can call it that, has engaged in what I would consider advocacy and activism. It’s not true for everyone, it’s not even true for the majority of journalists. But there is a section out there that believes in it. And I think that has hurt us. And we must aim to be an independent arbiter of reality, trying to put it in context in an effort to get the truth over time. And we should focus more on the kind of questions we want to ask and try to get answers to those questions rather than thinking that we have the answers to those questions before we start reporting. Otherwise, the so-called report is just an exercise in confirmation bias.
How the collapse of local news contributes to a polarized media
Remnick: There are all kinds of news deserts around the country that have been created by this new news ecology, so that small newspapers and medium-sized newspapers have either shriveled to the point of disappearing or they have closed their doors. Newsrooms across the river here in New Jersey, for example, used to have a couple of hundred people in them have a few dozen, at best. They hang on the nails. If it has been replaced by an equally aggressive website, or even better, a gathering of news, journalists and editors, that would be one, but it is not.
Baron: Many people in the community have never even seen a reporter. He never met a reporter. His impression of the reporter is shaped by the arguments he sees on cable news, the partisan arguments, what he sees on cable news. And it’s really unfortunate, because it’s not the way that most journalists do themselves.
In general America cannot agree with the facts
Baron: The sad truth today is that we as a society do not share common facts. But it’s actually worse than that. We can’t even agree on what reality is on how to define reality, because all the elements that have been used in the past to define what reality is have been devalued, discarded, despised, rejected. It’s all about education, expertise, real-world experience, and most importantly, evidence. …
So the idea here is to dispel the idea that there is a truth, an independent truth that can be determined by an independent arbiter of truth, whether it’s not just journalists, but also courts, or other people, and the only truth, at least in Trump’s mind, is that out of his own mouth.
What traditional media can learn from social media influencers
Baron: We need to be better communicators. We need to understand that the way people receive information today is very different from the way we received information when we were younger and the way we prefer to receive information today. So we have a lot to learn from influencers, actually, about how to do it. Not only is our authority being questioned today, but our authenticity is being questioned today. And these influencers seem more authentic and therefore people perceive them as more authoritative.
Monique Nazareth and Thea Chaloner produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Meghan Sullivan adapted for the web.
