Donald Trump is largely responsible for cramming the last five years of news coverage with innumerable lies, conspiracy theories, scapegoats, racist dog whistles, and reality-shattering accusations. But we in the press helped him. Many media organizations were slow to take his rise to power seriously. Others failed to call his lies "lies" or brand his demagoguery as "white supremacist." And just about all of us treated his every utterance as front page material.
The Trump era may well be behind us, but his time in power revealed deep vulnerabilities and blind spots in our industry that the press must confront and begin to repair. In this piece, Brooke speaks with a variety of journalists about what we should've learned from the past presidency, and what principles should inform future coverage — to help make sure this never happens again:
Yamiche Alcindor, White House correspondent with PBS NewsHour.
Jay Rosen, New York University journalism professor and author of the PressThink blog.
Karen Attiah, Global Opinions editor for The Washington Post.
David Leonhardt, author of The Morning newsletter at The New York Times. (Interview first aired in 2016).
Masha Gessen, staff writer with The New Yorker. (Interview first aired in 2016).
This is a segment from our January 22nd, 2021 program, Well, That Was Some Weird Sh*t.