Donald Trump on NBC‘s Meet the Press (1/10/16)
There is a crisis in American journalism. For too long, news outlets have prioritized their bottom line over real stories, at the expense of the American people. Stories about the vast systemic problems in America, from war to staggering income inequality to climate change to the amount of money being spent on our political system, are perpetually eclipsed by a 24-hour circus of infotainment.
Nowhere has the failure of the media been clearer than in the 2016 presidential election, where scandals, false statements and horse-race politics so often took precedence over policy. A study from the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard’s Kennedy School, found that coverage of Trump on eight major news outlets in 2015 alone was worth $55 million in free advertising for the candidate.
Every time major media outlets asked an irrelevant question at the presidential debates, every time they cued a roundtable of Trump and Clinton surrogates, every time they ignored or downplayed independent or third-party candidates, they failed. They decided to play a dangerous political game, and in turn, were played.
Now we have a president who has openly threatened and aggressed against members of the media. He has called for opening up libel laws and suing the press for their coverage. When we do not fully exercise our press freedoms, when we do not remain vigilant, we are jeopardizing those very liberties and thereby jeopardizing our democracy. Democracy is only as strong as a media that is a watchdog, not a lapdog, of power.
As we enter uncharted political terrain, our jobs as journalists have gotten more difficult and more critical. We cannot afford to foment division at a time of heightened hate speech and crimes against our nation’s most vulnerable populations. We cannot afford to turn a blind eye to the most pressing issues of our times, such as healthcare, poverty and climate change. We cannot afford to fail the American people again.
This is why we, members of the alternative American press and journalists working within national media, demand that the news media do better. We pledge to do the following in our reporting, and we invite fellow members of the media to sign on and pledge to do the same. You can contact us here if you are interested: <newsmedialetter@gmail.com>.
1. Don’t consent to closed-door meetings
While refusing to hold a single press conference so far since his electoral college victory, Trump has staged private, off-the-record meetings with prominent pundits and network executives. Last month, journalists from major media outlets gathered at his extravagant Mar-A-Lago Estate in Palm Beach, Florida for a closed-door session. More off-the-record meetings followed, including a meeting with Vogue and Vanity Fair editors. The press should treat a man as powerful and dangerous as Trump with utmost scrutiny and transparency—and must never agree to his terms of secrecy. We’re all at risk when the press corps is too busy soaking up sunlight at Mar-A-Lago to shine sunlight on the incoming administration.
2. Stop normalizing hate
It is irrefutable that Donald Trump predicated his presidential campaign on incitement against immigrants, refugees, Muslims and the Black Lives Matter movement. As president-elect, he has appointed white nationalist Stephen Bannon as “chief strategist and senior counselor” and nominated renowned racist Jeff Sessions to be his attorney general. As leaders of Black Lives Matter put it in a recent statement:
Donald Trump has promised more death, disenfranchisement and deportations. We believe him. The violence he will inflict in office, and the permission he gives for others to commit violence, is just beginning to emerge.
Instead of informing the public of the real dangers presented by a president-elect who is giving organized white supremacists a direct line to the White House, many media outlets and prominent pundits are portraying these appointments as legitimate and normal.
On November 9, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times ran an article titled “Gritting Our Teeth and Giving President Trump a Chance.” NPR host Kelly McEvers aired an interview soon after in which she allowed white nationalist Richard Spencer, widely recognized as a leader of the so-called “alt-right,” to lay out his hateful agenda with no aggressive questioning.
We call on media outlets to take a hard, unflinching look at the real dangers the Trump administration poses to society—and report those accurately, clearly and courageously.
3. Cover real issues
According to the Tyndall Report, from the beginning of 2016 until the election, ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News failed to cover issues such as healthcare, climate change, gun and drug violence, or poverty unless they were raised by a presidential candidate. Issue coverage declined on these shows declined by 70 percent compared to 2012. This kind of disregard for real issues affecting Americans is unacceptable.
News outlets must do better than focus on personality-driven politics, clickbait headlines, scandals and fluff pieces.
4. Diversify the newsroom
African-Americans make up just 5 percent of television newsroom jobs—a level of representation essentially unchanged from 50 years ago. Back in 1968, Lyndon B. Johnson’s National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, known as the Kerner Commission, wrote that part of what caused the riots that befell American cities in the mid-1960s was that
the media report and write from the standpoint of a white man’s world. . . . Fewer than five percent of the people employed by the news business in editorial jobs in the United States today are Negroes.
Race, gender and class identities are not the only variables that make up a good reporter. But when a community is not represented in the staff of a media outlet, it often means their stories are left out.
Today, the issues facing most people of color, and most working-class people, are a world removed from the life experience of the majority of newsroom staff.
5. Cover local issues
Journalism is facing an industry-wide reorganization that has gutted local reporting. According to the Pew Research Center, weekday circulation for newspapers fell 7 percent across the country in 2015. Pew notes that “smaller budgets have continued to lead to smaller newsrooms: The latest newspaper newsroom employment figures show 10 percent declines, greater than in any year since 2009.” When there are fewer reporters watching statehouses, local courts and corporate boardrooms—and when there are not enough journalists talking with ordinary people—we end up with a pundit class that is profoundly out of touch. As national media stars show themselves willing to engage in ethically questionable off-the-record conversations with Trump, it is more clear than ever that we need real reporting, rooted in local accountability, with the aim of expanding transparency in the service of the public good.
6. Cover political dissent
In cities and towns across the country, people have marched through their communities and organized emergency meetings to make it clear that they reject the Trump administration. Many are having hard conversations about how to defend those communities that will be attacked first under Trump’s most retrograde policies. These efforts necessitate coverage, as does their repression. Demonstrations and public dissent are a constitutional right guaranteed by the First Amendment, and audiences should be reminded of this.
Rather than telling protesters they are being too rash, or drawing false equivalencies between angry demonstrations and Trump-style hate, the pundit class should report on dissent and resistance with the respect and attention it deserves.
Signed:
Francesca Fiorentini (AJ+)
Jordan Flaherty (Author, No More Heroes)
Sarah Lazare (AlterNet)
Laura Flanders (Laura Flanders Show)
Nadia Prupis (Common Dreams)
Deirdre Fulton (Common Dreams)
Kate Elston (AJ+)
Chelis López (KPOO)
Michael Arria (AlterNet)
Mary Nichols (DJ Fusion) (FuseBox Radio & BlackRadioIsBack.com)
Jaisal Noor (Real News Network)
Chuck Munson (Infoshop News)
Revised version: January 12, 2017
Life is good.
Be happy;
Smog Warnings have been rare for decades in N. America thanks to the clean burning of fossil fuels that are abundant and cheap now thanks to fracking that is also ending the oil wars and giving us possible world peace. Wind and solar cave man and Y2K jokes in the coming history books.
Are you sick?
I want integrity, wading in the weeds – enough of the shallow; big picture, accurate, relevant reporting. Per my learning preference, use more graphics. For example, show a graphic of U.S. budget priorities for the last 75 years showing the shift from domestic programs to war & who (the companies & the people) are benefiting. Here’s another: develop a pie chart showing the top ten contributors to climate change, what strategies are being used to reduce climate warming, what’s working, etc.
One of my favorite topics is industrial hemp. What are the top ten greatest uses of fossil fuels? How much of the fossil fuel dollar can hemp replace? So far I know hemp can replace fossil fuel plastics, fertilizers, some (how many?) pharmaceuticals, gasoline > electric vehicles. How many of you know about the U of Alberta (CA) research re: bast fiber hemp (considered garbage) as an ultrafast supercapacitor? That it can replace filthy dirty, expensive graphene? Have any of you explored the impact of our dependence on rare metals in communities where the metals are mined? How many wars would end abruptly if hemp were to replace many rare metals & the fossil fuel dollar?
I think of hemp as “God’s gentle diplomat.”
Incidentally, hemp can replace water pipes & water pipe sealent, hence ending the lead in potable water danger. But can it? Isn’t the water that’s poisoning Flint MI residents coming from a polluted source, not from lead pipes, or both?
Any of you looking at the explosion of white male violence? Any ideas why it’s happening? Solutions? Why is the initial sign (domestic violence) of it so often ignored? In the reporting of the Ft. Lauderdale shootings, how many reporters mentioned that the shooter had a significant history of domestic violence?
Billions of dollars spent to spy on Americans for “security” purposes yet initial symptoms of future violence ignored.
More broadly, we are living during a major paradigm shift. Anybody looking at that? How many billions of dollars devoted to “security,” without asking what paradigm is being used? The logical/rational paradigm. Who’s promoting a rebalancing to include the intuitive realm?
For example, I experienced a time when LANL officials announced a major security breach. The director got very nasty publicly toward the employees. Several months later LANL announced that merely the appearance of a security breach had occurred. Meantime, local news reported that someone had spotted smoke coming from a cave that happened to be beneath a Department of Energy building at LANL. Turned out that a man had been living in that cave for a long time, that the smoke coming from his cave home was from his wood stove. His presence was discovered only due to the smoke.
A skilled intuitive would have spotted his presence immediately, but not logical/rational bound LANL I think we are risking untold numbers of lives & wasting billions of dollars due to using a limited paradigm.
He is right because media is not playing role. Why all media work on lies
It’s their job.
Google,reported you as “not a credible news site,Alternative News”
The Tyndall Report’s ambiguous statement is amplified in this report. The 32 minutes ABC/CBS/NBC spent on issues appears to be per night, which you don’t state.
And the survey doesn’t cover “until the election” as the letter says, but until two weeks before it (though it’s unlikely that coverage improved).
I certainly agree with the critique, but those who call for better journalism ought to practise it.
I liked your article until you injected your own political bias then I quit reading. Shouldn’t being unbiased be one of your goals?
No, being “unbiased” means that a reporter is being lazy and not thinking critically about what s/he is reporting on. We give certain people in our society authority over us in certain matters. Wealthy people often acquire power and influence over authority figures. There is an old saying, “Power corrupts; Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” A free and vigilant Press is often the only means we have to protect ourselves from those who are too powerful.
The job of a journalist is not merely to state what is taking place, to simply parrot whatever the people with authority tell you to say, but to put that information into context for the news consumer (reader, viewer, listener) by first of all researching whether or not what someone says is true, pointing out when quoted statistics are, in actual fact, made up, and giving people accurate information.
Next, people in positions of authority (politicians, police, corporations, i.e.: anyone powerful enough to have a spokesperson speak for them) like to hide what they are saying inside of more “comfortable” language. It is the journalist’s job to recognize this, interpret this Orwellian doublespeak and translate it into plain language that everyday people speak.
Third, a journalist needs to find out the things that people with power would prefer the public didn’t know about. Look into the holdings they have. Find out who owns the company. Where did the money come from? Where is it going? Whose civil rights are being trampled, by who, how, and why? How did our lawmakers vote on an issue, and why? Is that different from what they told the voters? Compare what a politician or corporation says about an issue to what respected experts in that field say about that issue. Find out what the public needs to hear about. Shed light on what the powerful are trying to hide from us.
A journalist’s job is to inform the public. If the public only ever learns what people with power WANT the public to know without informing them about things they DON’T want the public to know, then the journalist has failed in their job.
Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.