Are US journalists afraid of Trump?

Great Debates
1

In this video (see link below), Keith Olbermann makes the claim that the US media is afraid to ask Trump tough questions. That they ask questions more for how they will look on TV. I.e that is all for show, ratings, etc.

I’ve long lamented that journalism doesn’t seem like it once was, but I also wonder whether some of that is rose-colored glasses of a person aging look at the past, i.e. the back-in-my-day effect. I’ve often felt that journalism has become a product to be consumed, designed to make you think you need and you better tune in tomorrow (or buy the paper, or come to the website) or you’ll be uninformed. Or maybe even in danger if you don’t find out the news. You better tune in! This seems especially true since the start 24 hour news channels that needs content. There’s a deep need now in the media to be first.

Certainly the coverage of Trump during the campaign seemed like this. Come and see the latest buffoonery. And Trump laughed all the way to the White House.

Since then, I do feel like to some degree the coverage of Trump has been focused on the spectacle that is Trump. On the other hand, how do you avoid the spectacle that is Trump since he is such a ignorant pompous buffoon (and if you don’t agree oh well, I’m not going to try to convince you that Trump is a buffoon)? So what do you think? Is the media holding the Trump administration’s feet to the fire, trying to get them to gaffe for clicks/ratings, a bit of both, or something else?

If you think they’ve played it soft with Trump, do you think that’s because they’re afraid of being shut out?

2

Oh, Trump gets asked tough questions by American reporters.

He just avoids answering them.

Keith Olbermann is not very good at asking tough questions himself - at least when it comes to dubious medical treatments.

3

I think Trump might be so narcissistic and unrealistic that he can’t see that there is no one who is afraid of him. Afraid of the nasty shit he can do in his position? That’s one thing. Afraid of Trump the intimidating blowhard? That’d be nobody. There might be some degree of journalists giving him some kind of benefit of his Office, in terms of begudged respect, but that’s the professionals being professional.

4

I would say a bit yes. He calls them out for being the arrogant, biased and outright bigoted people they are.

5

So he’s projecting?

6

The Press has funny hair, too.

7

Journalists have tried to discredit Trump, but unfortunately, the media have over the years discredited themselves - not because of a liberal bias but because most media just don’t do news anymore. Most news gathering organizations don’t even have investigative reporting teams these days (or if they do they are substantially reduced in number). What exists now is nothing like what existed in the days of Watergate. And investigative reporting itself, which used to be a centerpiece of post-WWII modern media, often gets drowned out by the noise of entertainment media, and more recently things like viral videos. Much of the news, like many other products these days, is produced not by large industrialized powerhouse conglomerates, but often by a multitude of smaller, independent outlets and even individual people themselves. We have craft beer and craft wine, and we now have craft news, too. A journalistic gladiator challenging Trump goes into that arena knowing that he doesn’t have the same audience standing behind him and cheering him on that he would have had even 20 years ago.

8

I think the media have always had mixed motives with Trump. On one hand, they loathe him- but they MADE him, too! They regard him as bad for America but awesome for viewership and clicks.

During the GOP primary season, the media were Trump’s biggest allies, because they treated him as THE story. He was the only story, as far as the media were concerned. Reporters ignored the other candidates, except when asking them “What do YOU think of Donald Trump?”

The media helped Trump get the nomination. They THOUGHT they could destroy him during general election season, and they TRIED to do so. To their horror, they found that they couldn’t! That stories sure to kill any other candidate didn’t hurt Trump at all.

And now? The media aren’t afraid of Trump. Not at all. They hate him and want to destroy him- they’re just shell shocked and demoralized because they don’t know HOW to fight him successfully. Nothing they’ve used against him has worked so far, and they just don’t know what WILL work.

9

I was one of the direct witnesses of the “good old days,” and I’m not seeing much difference. Then as now, some “news” reporters and groups were obviously paid shills for the people in power, some were obviously asking only the obvious questions (and accepting whatever they were told), and a tiny few were doing the vary hard work needed to ACTUALLY report the entire story.

If you take a realistic look back into the past, the idea of the heroic reporters bravely seeking truth gets a bit tarnished, if not demolished entirely.  Look up Yellow Journalism for one view.  And look up how the news people of the 1950's almost entirely failed to report the insanity of McCarthyism for the insanity it was, until AFTER it started to fall apart.  Watergate was so badly reported at first, that it almost got swept under the rug.

There is also a long history of one group of reporters decrying what another group is doing, and either calling them cowards, or muckrakers, or worse.

Most of all though, I've seen that at the moment questions are being asked and avoided, it's very hard to tell who is pursuing truth, and who is just grandstanding for themselves, and who is just going with the flow, and who is following the strategy of APPEARING to go with the flow, in order to retain access to people in power.  It's only AFTER the dust settles, that it becomes possible to decide who was reporting well, and who just got lucky while chasing tawdry scandals or random distractions.
10

Is there much point in asking him challenging questions, if all you’re going to get back is word soup? It’s not as though he’s going to get into an intellectual dialogue.

11

Asahi and Astorian, you have similar thoughts to my impressions.

Interesting point as well Igor.

Patrick, I think the point is to get it on record. Perhaps I still naively have confidence in the bulk of the voting public that policy, truth, etc. matter. Maybe I’m the fool though.

For example, I thought Dickerson pushing him to express his opinion was the right thing to do. I think he even presented it the right way “You’re the PotUS, I want to hear your opinion because it matters.” (or something to that effect)

One of the things expressed by Olbermann, with whom I don’t necessarily agree with very often I find him far to rhetorical but entertaining to listen to (and maybe that makes me part of the problem), is that the European media has been harder on Trump? I don’t see it outside of that one instance with Ivanka and again this is what I don’t like about Olbermann is he tries to make much out of little things. In fact, that kind of grandstanding is exactly what’s he ranting against in that very video. Any thoughts on that?

12

Missed edit window. By “harder” I mean with greater journalistic rigor.

13

Some of it may be that "…yes, of Course he’s an unstable reactionary child who is long on stunts and bloviation as well as short on honesty and credibility. But he’s a psycho with the army at his comand and all we have are the deadbolts on our doors. "

14

Well said.

The irony of the situation is that Trump is the worst President to ever hold the office and the media seems completely incapable of doing anything about it. There are good reporters out there but they have no audience; they’re largely drowned out by John Oliver, Samantha Bee, and (insert whatever right wing guy is most popular right now.) Even when those people provide some interesting insight - which John Oliver often does - their insight is largely dependent upon someone having already done the grunt work of investigative reporting.

Of course it would be crazy to say the media wasn’t full of liars, cranks and politically slanted nonsense years ago, but we tend to think of the mainstream media as being what it was in the golden age of reporting, when most respectable outlets made an honest, legitimate attempt to uncover the facts and present them to the public. Now the masters of news are news aggregators who do no work and just pass on other people’s work. The amount of journalism being done is being reduced, but it’s being copied a hundred times more, which both reduces the fidelity through Xerox errors and makes it easier for fake news to get through.

The fact a lot of news is junky isn’t limited to the right. What Samantha Bee is going to yell about tonight might be largely true and morally correct, but it is just a lady yelling at the camera, not actual news; Bee’s shtick is to get angry about information someone else (and I do mean someone else - not someone on her staff) did the work to uncover. So Bee’s audience is universally going to be people who agree with her and, if she bends the truth a little, they won’t care. Nobody who COULD be convinced to change their minds is listening.

To make a long story short (too late!) journalists aren’t afraid of Trump. There just aren’t many journalists anymore.

15

John Oliver talked about this in ones of his videos and urged people to support investigative news outlets. I couldn’t agree more. Sadly, in our type of economy, the dollar rules. If investigative journalism doesn’t generate ratings/clicks then in isn’t going to get as large of a budget as, in my view, it should. I think much of this is due to the 24 hours news. The need to generate so much content means focusing on the type of stories that get people to watch and are easy to generate. It isn’t easy or cheap to generate 24 hours of hard hitting investigative journalism. But it is so very easy to get a bunch of talking heads to come on and talk nonsense about the spectacle.

My title is a bit misleading. It should say “Are US journalists afraid to ask hard questions to Trump?” (in fact if a mod sees this and would be willing to change it, that’d be great).

16

[quote=“BeepKillBeep, post:1, topic:785818”]

In this video (see link below), Keith Olbermann makes the claim that the US media is afraid to ask Trump tough questions. That they ask questions more for how they will look on TV. I.e that is all for show, ratings, etc.

I’ve long lamented that journalism doesn’t seem like it once was, but I also wonder whether some of that is rose-colored glasses of a person aging look at the past, i.e. the back-in-my-day effect. I’ve often felt that journalism has become a product to be consumed, designed to make you think you need and you better tune in tomorrow (or buy the paper, or come to the website) or you’ll be uninformed. Or maybe even in danger if you don’t find out the news. You better tune in! This seems especially true since the start 24 hour news channels that needs content. There’s a deep need now in the media to be first.

Certainly the coverage of Trump during the campaign seemed like this. Come and see the latest buffoonery. And Trump laughed all the way to the White House.

Since then, I do feel like to some degree the coverage of Trump has been focused on the spectacle that is Trump. On the other hand, how do you avoid the spectacle that is Trump since he is such a ignorant pompous buffoon (and if you don’t agree oh well, I’m not going to try to convince you that Trump is a buffoon)? So what do you think? Is the media holding the Trump administration’s feet to the fire, trying to get them to gaffe for clicks/ratings, a bit of both, or something else?

If you think they’ve played it soft with Trump, do you think that’s because they’re afraid of being shut out?

[/QUOTE]

No, I do not.

If anything Trump is victim of suggestive headlines by the press that have words like according to sources, allegedly, and investigation without the context of what is being investigated.

The trouble with reporters is…they aren’t very informed or good at their job these days.

Keith Olbermann was better as a sports caster. As a news guy he’s wind bag.

17

There are “tough” questions and there are ambush/“gotcha” questions.

I’d love to see reporters ask Trump some “tough” questions that would force him to show some thought, to display some knowledge of facts. THAT kind of tough question might make even his fans wonder if they elected an incompetent ignoramus.

But the kind of “tough” questions a John Oliver or Samantha Bee would ask? Worse than useless. That kind of “tough” question would merely indicate from the start, “We’re Trump’s enemies and we’re here to try and make him look bad.” Do that, and Trump gets to smirk, “You’re an asshole, you know that?” And sure enough, Oliver WOULD look like an asshole.

Before asking ANY tough question, you have to be honest with yourself: am I really looking for an interesting answer, or just showing off for my fellow left-wingers.

18

Reporters are obsessed with maintaining “access”. Meaning they need to be in the room and they need to be able to get people to sit down for an interview.

This makes them gun shy towards anyone in power. If you are 25 and starting out you can shit-can your career with one gotcha question (and even a fair question can be viewed as a “gotcha” by the person being interviewed).

19

In other words, “gotcha” questions.

20

Seems most people define a “gotcha” question based on what side of the fence they are on. To one side asking Clinton about her email server is a gotcha question and to the other side it is fair game.

To me “gotcha” questions are leading questions. E.g. “Senator, when did you stop beating your wife?”