presswatchers--2020-05-20--When Trump takes a step toward autocracy, journalists need to call it out

Autocrats don ’ t announce it publicly when they ’ re taking a step toward greater authoritarianism .
As long as there ’ s a free press , it ’ s up to journalists to call them out .
But even as Donald Trump and members of his administration have asserted greater and more unilateral executive power , our top news organizations have tended to interpret those moves narrowly and naively – giving too much credit to cover stories , marginalizing criticism as just so much partisan squabbling , and leaving the accurate , alarming description of what ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ News reporters seem particularly susceptible to pronouncements from Attorney General William Barr — despite his history of deception , and even though the Department of Justice is the most dangerous tool Trump has , short of the armed forces .
Much of the news coverage of Barr ’ s decision last week to drop charges against Trump crony Michael Flynn – on an absurd pretext , accompanied by hypocritical pronouncements – was stenographic , credulous , and short-sighted .
The coverage failed to alert the public to how seriously Barr ’ s move @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and to the how it showed Barr retargeting the department ’ s big guns at Trump ’ s enemies – starting with those inside the law enforcement and intelligence communities .
And while reporting on Trump ’ s Friday-night decision to fire the State Department ’ s inspector general has been aggressive and critical , it , too , has failed to sufficiently alarm the public about the consequences – in this case , an executive branch freed of even the most basic , routine oversight .
Most of what Donald Trump does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ draw attention away from his failure to lead an effective national response to the Covid-19 pandemic .
News organizations generally speaking shouldn ’ t let themselves be distracted .
But some of Trump ’ s actions merit much closer and more diligent scrutiny .
They need to be exposed , and contextualized as part of a bigger picture : Under cover of the raging pandemic , Donald Trump is taking consistent steps towards authoritarianism .
Barr ’ s assault on the rule of law When the Justice Department announced on May 7 that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn , most major news outlets interpreted the news too narrowly .
It was a win for Flynn .
It was win for Trump .
It was an attempt to discredit the Mueller Report .
All that is true , as far as it goes .
But the most important and significant news — the aspect that should have been the central thrust of every headline and every story , that day and for days after – was not about Flynn as much as it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just done to the Justice Department , to the federal law-enforcement community , and to the rule of law .
Some news stories , somewhere along the way , included indications that “ critics ” or “ Democrats ” or “ former Obama administration officials ” saw troubling signs of politicization of the Justice Department .
But in the reckoning of anyone who has a basic-level understanding of federal law enforcement and is not a partisan hack , this was way more than just a little politicization .
This was a brazen show @ @ @ @ @ @ @ By filing a court document that embraced Trump ’ s “ deep state ” conspiracy theories and by telling CBS News that charges against former officials are forthcoming , Barr essentially declared war against the federal law enforcement community he ostensibly leads .
Indeed , it was a move toward the criminalization of federal law enforcement as it is traditionally practiced by devoted career civil servants – and toward criminalization of accountability in particular .
By so blatantly letting a Trump crony get away with a crime , and by telling CBS that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ message ” about the department ’ s “ standard of justice ” going forward , Barr was making it clear that friends of Trump are off limits to law enforcement – and Trump ’ s enemies are on notice .
Barr actually said out loud that this was just the first of many more such actions to come .
“ I mean , it ’ s not gon na be the end of it , ” he told CBS News .
And in a wholly inappropriate comment about an ongoing investigation by U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Barr said the department is “ seeing if there are people who violated the law and should be brought to justice , and that ’ s what we have our eye on.
” Trump got the message that it was open season on his enemies , tweeting the very next morning : “ A lot of things are going to be told over the next couple of weeks and let ’ s see what happens , ” Trump told Fox & Friends that same morning , adding : “ I want Bill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nothing to do.
” Within three days , Trump was tweeting about “ OBAMAGATE !
” .
Within three more , Trump ’ s newly-installed loyalist director of national intelligence declassified information with the clear intent to gull weak-minded voters and journalists into thinking it supported Trump ’ s completely unsupported conspiracy theory .
And the next morning , without specifying what he was talking about , Trump told Fox Business ’ s Maria Bartiromo : “ It was the greatest political crime in the history of our country… And people should be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And hopefully a lot of people are going to have to pay.
” Politicians don ’ t make particularly credible press critics , but Obama had it exactly right when he told supporters in a private call on May 8 : How it played in the news columns Initial coverage of the Flynn decision garnered simplistic headlines , a lot of stenography , and a focus on the optics – mostly through a partisan lens .
Republicans were supportive , Democrats were critical .
What only some reporters bothered to point out at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people with actual experience and expertise in law enforcement that what Barr had just done was terribly harmful and dangerous .
In the New York Times article headlined “ U.S .
Drops Michael Flynn Case , in Move Backed by Trump , ” Adam Goldman and Katie Benner noted in their lead that the move came “ [ a ] fter an extraordinary public campaign by President Trump and his allies.
” And in their third paragraph , they explained that it was “ the latest example of Attorney General William P. Barr @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the results of the Russia investigation.
” But it wasn ’ t until the ninth paragraph that they offered an indication of the real story , and even then , only by quoting a partisan source : An analysis by Charlie Savage cast the move primarily as “ the latest in a series that the department , under Attorney General William P. Barr , has taken to undermine and dismantle the work of the investigators and prosecutors who scrutinized Russia ’ s 2016 election interference operation and its links to people associated with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a big part of it , but it missed the deeper implications – which weren ’ t addressed until the very end of Savage ’ s story , in a quote from Anne Milgram , a former federal prosecutor and former New Jersey attorney general .
Milgram argued that “ the more important frame for assessing the dropping of the case was to recognize how it fit into the larger pattern of the Barr-era department ‘ undercutting the law enforcement officials and prosecutors who investigated the 2016 election and its aftermath , ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Justice Department from the inside out.
’ ” In the Washington Post , under the headline “ Justice Dept .
moves to drop case against Michael Flynn , ” Spencer S. Hsu , Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky made several broad hints in the direction of the real dynamics at play , but always from a distance .
They allowed that it was “ a stunning reversal that prompted fresh accusations from law enforcement officials and Democrats that the criminal justice system was caving to political pressure from the administration.
” But look @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could not be more obvious was nevertheless relegated to the level of “ accusation.
” The Post ’ s “ reaction ” story , by Rosalind S. Helderman , Robert Costa and Shane Harris , offered the worst kind of false equivalence .
The headline : “ Flynn decision cheered by Trump and the right , as critics decry it as an attack on the rule of law.
” It should have read : “ Attack on the rule of law cheered by Trump and the right.
” And rather than focusing on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should have taken more note of their own reporting that “ a chorus of former federal prosecutors and FBI officials decried the move , ” and that “ [ c ] urrent and former national security officials said they were dismayed.
” A Post article the next day by Devlin Barrett , Matt Zapotosky and Josh Dawsey did focus on how “ multiple federal law enforcement officials interviewed Friday expressed varying degrees of anger , resignation and alarm over the decision ” .
But the implications of that were not fully explored .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ cast it as Trump “ getting his revenge.
” She wrote : But too much coverage was stenographic .
The first hint of the real story in Michael Balsamo and Eric Tucker ’ s AP article came in a 10th-paragraph quote from Pelosi .
NPR ’ s coverage was predictably low on skepticism .
NPR “ Morning Edition ” host David Greene ’ s credulous question to justice correspondent Ryan Lucas was : Special dishonorable mention has to go to CBS News and reporter Catherine Herridge for indulging Barr with a credulous and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ explanations and hypocritical piety didn ’ t just go unchallenged , they were invited .
Consider : The real news was off the news pages It shouldn ’ t be up to the opinion writers to explain what the news really is .
But that ’ s where we stand .
We depend on them , the alt-news sites , the late-night comedians , and the political cartoonists to tell us the searing truth .
As it happens , a perfect model for what the news analyses should have said about Barr ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ matter of hours , in the form of a New York Times op-ed by Georgetown law professors and former Obama administration officials Neal K. Katyal and Joshua A. Geltzer .
They noted the widespread sense of outrage and “ utter demoralization ” among criminal law specialists and members of the law enforcement community .
They explained that “ this move embeds into official U.S. policy an extremist view of law enforcement as the enemy of the American people ” – and how , specifically , “ In this view , federal investigators and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American people.
” They traced that narrative from far-right websites , to Fox News , to Bill Barr .
David Cay Johnston , the former New York Times reporter , got right to the point on the DCReport web site , where he is editor in chief : In the Washington Post opinion section , writer Paul Waldman situated Barr ’ s move in the narrative in a way the news stories failed to : Writing in a Washington Post op-ed , former federal prosecutor Randall D. Eliason described the department ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up as legal analysis , promoting the ‘ deep state ’ conspiracy fantasies of President Trump .
It epitomizes the politicization of the Justice Department under Attorney General William P. Barr .
It is , in the truest sense of the word , lawless.
” The New York Times editorial board also saw the dangers ahead : On Monday , reporters were yet again too willing to take what Barr said at face value – giving him way too much credit for allegedly distancing himself from Trump ’ s rhetoric about Obama and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their successors .
So , for instance , the New York Times headlined its story , by Katie Benner and Adam Goldman , “ Barr Dismisses Trump ’ s Claim That Russia Inquiry Was an Obama Plot.
” In reality , all Barr said about Obama and Biden was that “ not every abuse of power , no matter how outrageous , is necessarily a federal crime , ” and that “ whatever their level of involvement , based on the information I have today , I don ’ t expect Mr. Durham @ @ @ @ @ @ @ criminal investigation of either man.
” He reiterated his view that “ what happened to the president in the 2016 election and throughout the first two years of his administration was abhorrent.
” That doesn ’ t rule out filing high-profile criminal charges against underlings – as Barr has essentially promised – and then pointing fingers at Biden and Obama in the heat of the campaign .
But Benner and Goldman , like pretty much every other major news organization reporter covering the story , actually quoted Barr — without any caveats about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ As long as I ’ m attorney general , the criminal justice system will not be used for partisan political ends.
” What happens next time ?
I don ’ t understand why any reporter gives Barr the benefit of the doubt – especially when he denies being influenced by politics .
There is overwhelming evidence that he has been a dutiful enabler of Trump in every way imaginable .
As reformer Fred Wertheimer recently wrote , Barr “ has repeatedly abused his office to provide personal and political protection for Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ credibility of the department.
” And reporters should feel particularly burned by Barr on account of his wild misrepresentation of the Mueller report .
As Washington Post media writer Margaret Sullivan wrote last year : Heck , Barr is still lying about the Mueller report , repeating on Monday that “ [ t ] he law enforcement and intelligence apparatus of this country were involved in advancing a false and utterly baseless Russian collusion narrative against the president.
” And there ’ s fresh evidence all the time .
Former Obama DOJ spokesman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The article by Spencer S. Hsu and Keith L. Alexander described how Barr just took the highly unusual step of sending a loyalist in a top job at Main Justice to be the top deputy over the federal prosecutor ’ s office for Washington , “ raising concerns that a key U.S. attorney ’ s office handling multiple investigations of interest to President Trump is becoming further politicized.
” Reporters need to be better prepared to push back the next time Barr does something outrageously political and claims he ’ s taking the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Goodman , co-editor-in-chief of Just Security , suspects that Barr ’ s next move will be to file “ well-founded criminal indictments against one or more former officials who leaked the content of the classified intercept of the Dec. 29 , 2016 phone call between Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Flynn ’ s identity in that communication.
” The leak led to some press coverage .
Big deal .
But Barr and other Trump loyalists would then presumably spin that leak as evidence of a high-level plot to take Trump down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to fight the next spin and disinformation campaign .
They need to stop quoting Barr ’ s pieties about being apolitical without context .
They need to point out Barr will likely be violating a long-standing Justice Department policy to refrain from taking public action that could affect the outcome of an election .
And they need to have some boilerplate ready to describe Barr ’ s history of politicized decision-making , and his lack of credibility .
I recommend cribbing from the best news stories and opinion pieces above !
As for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coverage of Trump ’ s late-Friday-night decision to fire State Department Inspector General Steve Linick was admirably blunt .
Philip Rucker , Karen DeYoung , Lisa Rein and Hannah Knowles , in the Washington Post , led their Saturday evening story this way : They wrote that Trump was “ again challenging established norms of American governance in his push to rid the federal bureaucracy of officials he considers insufficiently loyal to or protective of him and his administration.
” They explained that : “ Inspectors general serve as internal government watchdogs conducting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they technically are political appointees , their independence has long been protected.
” They described the context : “ a series of moves by Trump since the Senate voted in February to acquit him in his impeachment trial ” intended to destroy what he calls the “ deep state.
” And they quoted Walter Shaub , a former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics , noting that “ Times of crisis are very dangerous for anti-corruption efforts and very dangerous for democracy because leaders use them to justify power grabs .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ s happening here.
” Washington Post reporter Philip Bump situated the move within “ The key political fight of this era : Trump vs. accountability ” And David A. Graham , in the Atlantic , wrote : Graham wrote that although Trump doesn ’ t seem to be ideological about this , “ [ a ] dvocates of the so-called unitary executive have sought to harness Trump ’ s efforts to avoid accountability for his own specific corruption and lawlessness in order to enshrine a more powerful executive branch generally.
” But in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cast it mostly as just another partisan squabble , reporting that “ Trump ’ s move infuriated Democrats who say he ’ s trying to circumvent oversight of his administration , undermining the ability of other branches to hold him accountable.
” And a lot of the coverage has focused on what Linick was investigating that might have ticked Pompeo and Trump off , rather than on Trump ’ s enthusiasm to get rid of anyone who might hold him accountable .
Finally , reporters have not followed the excellent advice provided on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ethics job six months into Trump ’ s presidency after repeated clashes , and has emerged as a leading political reformer .
Shaub called reporters ’ attention to the Inspector General statute , and particularly the section requiring a president to give Congress advance notice of the intent to fire an IG – in order to give Congress time to prevent it .
So Trump hasn ’ t actually fired Linick – he ’ s just announced that he plans to in 30 days .
Republican Members of Congress haven ’ t put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other inspectors general Trump has fired in the last few months .
Shaub said reporters should pressure them to stand up for the rule of law : The closest we ’ ve come to that is the Washington Post ’ s James Hohmann , calling attention on Monday to how Trump ’ s “ systemic effort to shield his administration from oversight and accountability has been aided and abetted by the relative silence of congressional Republicans after each move.
” So where are we now ?
Chris Megerian , Noah Bierman and Eli @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to explain where things stand on Monday , and did so without mincing words : That ’ s powerful stuff .
But by lumping all those things together , I think the authors risked erasing the distinction between some idiotic thing Trump may ( or may not ) be doing to himself , and acts that are dangerously authoritarian in nature .
Trump ’ s growing authoritarianism could end up being the second most important story after the pandemic in the run-up to the November election — especially if Trump sees there are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more power .
After all , with no downsides , who knows where he will stop ?

Autocrats don’t announce it publicly when they’re taking a step toward greater authoritarianism.
As long as there’s a free press, it’s up to journalists to call them out.
But even as Donald Trump and members of his administration have asserted greater and more unilateral executive power, our top news organizations have tended to interpret those moves narrowly and naively – giving too much credit to cover stories, marginalizing criticism as just so much partisan squabbling, and leaving the accurate, alarming description of what’s really going on to opinion writers.
News reporters seem particularly susceptible to pronouncements from Attorney General William Barr — despite his history of deception, and even though the Department of Justice is the most dangerous tool Trump has, short of the armed forces.
Much of the news coverage of Barr’s decision last week to drop charges against Trump crony Michael Flynn – on an absurd pretext, accompanied by hypocritical pronouncements – was stenographic, credulous, and short-sighted.
The coverage failed to alert the public to how seriously Barr’s move undercut the employees of his own department and to how it showed Barr retargeting the department’s big guns at Trump’s enemies – starting with those inside the law enforcement and intelligence communities.
And while reporting on Trump’s Friday-night decision to fire the State Department’s inspector general has been aggressive and critical, it, too, has failed to sufficiently alarm the public about the consequences – in this case, an executive branch freed of even the most basic, routine oversight.
Most of what Donald Trump does and says these days is intended to draw attention away from his failure to lead an effective national response to the Covid-19 pandemic. News organizations generally speaking shouldn’t let themselves be distracted.
But some of Trump’s actions merit much closer and more diligent scrutiny. They need to be exposed, and contextualized as part of a bigger picture: Under cover of the raging pandemic, Donald Trump is taking consistent steps towards authoritarianism.
Barr’s assault on the rule of law
When the Justice Department announced on May 7 that it wanted to drop its criminal case against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, most major news outlets interpreted the news too narrowly.
It was a reversal.
It was a win for Flynn.
It was win for Trump.
It was an attempt to discredit the Mueller Report.
All that is true, as far as it goes. But the most important and significant news — the aspect that should have been the central thrust of every headline and every story, that day and for days after – was not about Flynn as much as it was about Barr — and what he had just done to the Justice Department, to the federal law-enforcement community, and to the rule of law.
Some news stories, somewhere along the way, included indications that “critics” or “Democrats” or “former Obama administration officials” saw troubling signs of politicization of the Justice Department.
But in the reckoning of anyone who has a basic-level understanding of federal law enforcement and is not a partisan hack, this was way more than just a little politicization. This was a brazen show of fealty to the White House.
By filing a court document that embraced Trump’s “deep state” conspiracy theories and by telling CBS News that charges against former officials are forthcoming, Barr essentially declared war against the federal law enforcement community he ostensibly leads. Indeed, it was a move toward the criminalization of federal law enforcement as it is traditionally practiced by devoted career civil servants – and toward criminalization of accountability in particular.
By so blatantly letting a Trump crony get away with a crime, and by telling CBS that he hoped the move “sends the message” about the department’s “standard of justice” going forward, Barr was making it clear that friends of Trump are off limits to law enforcement – and Trump’s enemies are on notice.
Barr actually said out loud that this was just the first of many more such actions to come. “I mean, it’s not gonna be the end of it,” he told CBS News. And in a wholly inappropriate comment about an ongoing investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham into the Russia investigation, Barr said the department is “seeing if there are people who violated the law and should be brought to justice, and that’s what we have our eye on.”
Trump got the message that it was open season on his enemies, tweeting the very next morning:
Yesterday was a BIG day for Justice in the USA. Congratulations to General Flynn, and many others. I do believe there is MUCH more to come! Dirty Cops and Crooked Politicians do not go well together! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2020
“A lot of things are going to be told over the next couple of weeks and let’s see what happens,” Trump told Fox & Friends that same morning, adding: “I want Bill Barr to handle it. I want nothing to do.”
Within three days, Trump was tweeting about “OBAMAGATE!”. Within three more, Trump’s newly-installed loyalist director of national intelligence declassified information with the clear intent to gull weak-minded voters and journalists into thinking it supported Trump’s completely unsupported conspiracy theory.
And the next morning, without specifying what he was talking about, Trump told Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo: “It was the greatest political crime in the history of our country… And people should be going to jail for this stuff. And hopefully a lot of people are going to have to pay.”
That’s what Barr’s move set in motion.
Politicians don’t make particularly credible press critics, but Obama had it exactly right when he told supporters in a private call on May 8:
The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed — about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn. And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.
How it played in the news columns
Initial coverage of the Flynn decision garnered simplistic headlines, a lot of stenography, and a focus on the optics – mostly through a partisan lens. Republicans were supportive, Democrats were critical.
What only some reporters bothered to point out at all was the overwhelming agreement among credible people with actual experience and expertise in law enforcement that what Barr had just done was terribly harmful and dangerous.
In the New York Times article headlined “U.S. Drops Michael Flynn Case, in Move Backed by Trump,” Adam Goldman and Katie Benner noted in their lead that the move came “[a]fter an extraordinary public campaign by President Trump and his allies.” And in their third paragraph, they explained that it was “the latest example of Attorney General William P. Barr’s efforts to chisel away at the results of the Russia investigation.”
But it wasn’t until the ninth paragraph that they offered an indication of the real story, and even then, only by quoting a partisan source:
Democrats condemned the move. “A politicized and thoroughly corrupt Department of Justice is going to let the president’s crony simply walk away,” said Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “Americans are right to be furious and worried about the continued erosion of our rule of law.”
An analysis by Charlie Savage cast the move primarily as “the latest in a series that the department, under Attorney General William P. Barr, has taken to undermine and dismantle the work of the investigators and prosecutors who scrutinized Russia’s 2016 election interference operation and its links to people associated with the Trump campaign.”
That was definitely a big part of it, but it missed the deeper implications – which weren’t addressed until the very end of Savage’s story, in a quote from Anne Milgram, a former federal prosecutor and former New Jersey attorney general.
Milgram argued that “the more important frame for assessing the dropping of the case was to recognize how it fit into the larger pattern of the Barr-era department ‘undercutting the law enforcement officials and prosecutors who investigated the 2016 election and its aftermath,’ which she likened to ‘eating the Justice Department from the inside out.’”
That’s the story.
In the Washington Post, under the headline “Justice Dept. moves to drop case against Michael Flynn,” Spencer S. Hsu, Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky made several broad hints in the direction of the real dynamics at play, but always from a distance.
They allowed that it was “a stunning reversal that prompted fresh accusations from law enforcement officials and Democrats that the criminal justice system was caving to political pressure from the administration.” But look at their wording: A conclusion that could not be more obvious was nevertheless relegated to the level of “accusation.”
The Post’s “reaction” story, by Rosalind S. Helderman, Robert Costa and Shane Harris, offered the worst kind of false equivalence. The headline: “Flynn decision cheered by Trump and the right, as critics decry it as an attack on the rule of law.” It should have read: “Attack on the rule of law cheered by Trump and the right.”
And rather than focusing on the predictable partisan reactions, the authors should have taken more note of their own reporting that “a chorus of former federal prosecutors and FBI officials decried the move,” and that “[c]urrent and former national security officials said they were dismayed.”
A Post article the next day by Devlin Barrett, Matt Zapotosky and Josh Dawsey did focus on how “multiple federal law enforcement officials interviewed Friday expressed varying degrees of anger, resignation and alarm over the decision”. But the implications of that were not fully explored.
Natasha Bertrand, writing in Politico, cast it as Trump “getting his revenge.” She wrote:
Trump’s allies and those who got caught up in the Russia investigation see the Flynn developments as more evidence that the tide is turning in their favor—the first sign being Barr’s decision to overrule career prosecutors in February and slash the sentencing recommendation for longtime Trump associate Roger Stone. “I want to see people prosecuted,” said Mark Corallo, who served as the spokesman for Trump’s legal team in 2017. “If the facts support it,” he later caveated.
But too much coverage was stenographic. The first hint of the real story in Michael Balsamo and Eric Tucker’s AP article came in a 10th-paragraph quote from Pelosi.
NPR’s coverage was predictably low on skepticism. NPR “Morning Edition” host David Greene’s credulous question to justice correspondent Ryan Lucas was:
So to what extent is the FBI facing some questions here? I mean, could this be a significant moment for the FBI and its reputation?
Special dishonorable mention has to go to CBS News and reporter Catherine Herridge for indulging Barr with a credulous and enabling post-decision interview in which his disingenuous explanations and hypocritical piety didn’t just go unchallenged, they were invited. Consider:
Herridge: It sounds to me like one of your objectives is to never allow the Justice Department to be used as a political weapon. That’s what you’re saying you think happened here? Barr: I think, yes. I think there was an aspect of that. And I think, for the last several decades, the Department has been used more and more, or the efforts have been made to draw the Department into that. And I think it’s very important that that not happen.
The real news was off the news pages
It shouldn’t be up to the opinion writers to explain what the news really is. But that’s where we stand. We depend on them, the alt-news sites, the late-night comedians, and the political cartoonists to tell us the searing truth.
Please RT. I want to make sure Bill Barr and the people he meets today see this pic.twitter.com/1ucmJ9XDVh — Pat Bagley (@Patbagley) May 8, 2020
As it happens, a perfect model for what the news analyses should have said about Barr’s move was provided, in a matter of hours, in the form of a New York Times op-ed by Georgetown law professors and former Obama administration officials Neal K. Katyal and Joshua A. Geltzer.
They noted the widespread sense of outrage and “utter demoralization” among criminal law specialists and members of the law enforcement community.
They explained that “this move embeds into official U.S. policy an extremist view of law enforcement as the enemy of the American people” – and how, specifically, “In this view, federal investigators and prosecutors are a deep threat to the American people.” They traced that narrative from far-right websites, to Fox News, to Bill Barr.
David Cay Johnston, the former New York Times reporter, got right to the point on the DCReport web site, where he is editor in chief:
A Trump lackey took a major step Thursday toward establishing a Trump dictatorship.
He continued:
An extraordinary court filing demonstrated that Trump has one standard of justice for his enemies and an entirely different one for his allies. The court action shows how fully Trump has turned our Justice Department into his personal protection agency. Goodbye equal justice under the law.
And, Johnston wrote:
By demonstrating unfettered control over our Justice Department, Trump has achieved a critical step required for a transition from a president with limited authority to de facto dictator. The motion to drop the Flynn case fits Trump’s fact-free declaration last summer. “I have an Article II,” he said, “where I have to the right to do whatever I want as president.”
(I should note: I find it amazing that when Trump says things like that, about his absolute rights, it always sets off days and days of press coverage, generally leading to the conclusion that he is just talking smack. But when he or his attorney general actually do something that manifests that kind of authority, reporters seem to forget he ever said it.)
In the Washington Post opinion section, writer Paul Waldman situated Barr’s move in the narrative in a way the news stories failed to:
After complaining for months that the ideological extremist he installed as attorney general was insufficiently willing to act as his personal protector to enable his corruption (“I don’t have an attorney general,” he whined), the president installs a new attorney general, who makes his debut by misleading the public about the contents of an investigation into Russia’s effort to manipulate our elections. That attorney general then goes on to make extraordinary and unprecedented personal interventions into judicial proceedings to help the president’s cronies escape full accountability for their crimes.
And Waldman reached the obvious conclusion, writing:
And trust me, Trump and Barr are not done yet. With six months to go before the election, it would be utterly shocking if Barr did not do what Trump tried to strong-arm Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into doing: opening up an “investigation” into former vice president Joe Biden or his family, for no purpose other than creating headlines suggesting the presumptive Democratic nominee is as corrupt as Trump himself.
Writing in a Washington Post op-ed, former federal prosecutor Randall D. Eliason described the department’s motion as “a political screed dressed up as legal analysis, promoting the ‘deep state’ conspiracy fantasies of President Trump. It epitomizes the politicization of the Justice Department under Attorney General William P. Barr. It is, in the truest sense of the word, lawless.”
The New York Times editorial board also saw the dangers ahead:
It is a small step from using the Justice Department to protect your friends to using it to go after your political enemies. In other words, watch out, Joe Biden. It is, of course, entirely in character for Mr. Trump, who lavishes praise on autocrats and dictators around the world. He is now emulating them, using the Justice Department to protect his friends, in the belief that he can do so with impunity. As long as Mr. Barr leads the Justice Department, he can.
Barr’s alleged distancing
On Monday, reporters were yet again too willing to take what Barr said at face value – giving him way too much credit for allegedly distancing himself from Trump’s rhetoric about Obama and Biden having conspired in a plot against their successors.
So, for instance, the New York Times headlined its story, by Katie Benner and Adam Goldman, “Barr Dismisses Trump’s Claim That Russia Inquiry Was an Obama Plot.”
In reality, all Barr said about Obama and Biden was that “not every abuse of power, no matter how outrageous, is necessarily a federal crime,” and that “whatever their level of involvement, based on the information I have today, I don’t expect Mr. Durham’s work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man.” He reiterated his view that “what happened to the president in the 2016 election and throughout the first two years of his administration was abhorrent.”
That doesn’t rule out filing high-profile criminal charges against underlings – as Barr has essentially promised – and then pointing fingers at Biden and Obama in the heat of the campaign.
But Benner and Goldman, like pretty much every other major news organization reporter covering the story, actually quoted Barr — without any caveats about audacity and hypocrisy — as saying: “As long as I’m attorney general, the criminal justice system will not be used for partisan political ends.”
That’s a breathtaking disservice to readers.
What happens next time?
I don’t understand why any reporter gives Barr the benefit of the doubt – especially when he denies being influenced by politics. There is overwhelming evidence that he has been a dutiful enabler of Trump in every way imaginable. As reformer Fred Wertheimer recently wrote, Barr “has repeatedly abused his office to provide personal and political protection for Trump at the expense of the integrity and credibility of the department.”
And reporters should feel particularly burned by Barr on account of his wild misrepresentation of the Mueller report. As Washington Post media writer Margaret Sullivan wrote last year:
Recall how gullible — and therefore misleading to the public — the news media was in March when Attorney General William Barr characterized the unreleased report in a four-page letter. Coverage of that letter set in place an inaccurate narrative that has been almost impossible to dislodge. Many news organizations, including some of the most prominent, took what Barr said at face value or mischaracterized the report’s findings.
Heck, Barr is still lying about the Mueller report, repeating on Monday that “[t]he law enforcement and intelligence apparatus of this country were involved in advancing a false and utterly baseless Russian collusion narrative against the president.”
And there’s fresh evidence all the time. Former Obama DOJ spokesman Matthew Miller pointed out on Monday:
As Barr mouths platitudes today, pay attention to what he’s actually doing. Remarkable details from sitting career prosecutors in this story who are seeing the effects of his assault on DOJ’s independence. https://t.co/TaMCLarvAL — Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) May 18, 2020
The article by Spencer S. Hsu and Keith L. Alexander described how Barr just took the highly unusual step of sending a loyalist in a top job at Main Justice to be the top deputy over the federal prosecutor’s office for Washington, “raising concerns that a key U.S. attorney’s office handling multiple investigations of interest to President Trump is becoming further politicized.”
Reporters need to be better prepared to push back the next time Barr does something outrageously political and claims he’s taking the high road.
NYU law professor Ryan Goodman, co-editor-in-chief of Just Security, suspects that Barr’s next move will be to file “well-founded criminal indictments against one or more former officials who leaked the content of the classified intercept of the Dec. 29, 2016 phone call between Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Flynn’s identity in that communication.”
The leak led to some press coverage. Big deal. But Barr and other Trump loyalists would then presumably spin that leak as evidence of a high-level plot to take Trump down.
Reporters need to be get ready to fight the next spin and disinformation campaign. They need to stop quoting Barr’s pieties about being apolitical without context. They need to point out Barr will likely be violating a long-standing Justice Department policy to refrain from taking public action that could affect the outcome of an election.
And they need to have some boilerplate ready to describe Barr’s history of politicized decision-making, and his lack of credibility. I recommend cribbing from the best news stories and opinion pieces above!
As for the State Department IG
Some of the coverage of Trump’s late-Friday-night decision to fire State Department Inspector General Steve Linick was admirably blunt.
Philip Rucker, Karen DeYoung, Lisa Rein and Hannah Knowles, in the Washington Post, led their Saturday evening story this way:
President Trump accelerated his retaliatory purge of public servants by firing the State Department’s inspector general, who had played a minor role in the president’s impeachment proceedings and was said to have begun investigating alleged misconduct by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
They wrote that Trump was “again challenging established norms of American governance in his push to rid the federal bureaucracy of officials he considers insufficiently loyal to or protective of him and his administration.”
They explained that: “Inspectors general serve as internal government watchdogs conducting oversight of federal agencies — and although they technically are political appointees, their independence has long been protected.”
They described the context: “a series of moves by Trump since the Senate voted in February to acquit him in his impeachment trial” intended to destroy what he calls the “deep state.”
And they quoted Walter Shaub, a former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, noting that “Times of crisis are very dangerous for anti-corruption efforts and very dangerous for democracy because leaders use them to justify power grabs. I think that’s what’s happening here.”
CNN political reporter Maeve Reston wrote a terrific analysis:
Trump’s late Friday night firing of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick — at a time when America is preoccupied by coronavirus — once again had echoes of President Richard Nixon’s Saturday night massacre more than four decades ago when he tried to thwart the investigation into his involvement in the Watergate break in. But Trump’s attempt to systematically dismantle the checks and balances that are the bedrock of America’s democracy has arguably taken a far heavier toll. He is showing that he can bend the levers of government to suit his whims, by simply disposing of respected, career government employees whom he perceives as having criticized him, crossed him or refused to carry out his bidding. With the firings, he is demolishing the ideal that inspectors general can operate independently without fear of retribution as they attempt to uncover waste, fraud and abuse that does not serve the interests of the American people.
Washington Post reporter Philip Bump situated the move within “The key political fight of this era: Trump vs. accountability”
And David A. Graham, in the Atlantic, wrote:
In context, the war on inspectors general is the third and final front in Trump’s war on any kind of check on the executive branch. In the past few months alone, the White House has argued that Congress doesn’t have the right to oversee the executive branch. It has sought to convince courts that matters of oversight shouldn’t be decided by the judicial branch, either. And in going after inspectors general, an accountability mechanism embedded in the executive branch, it is staking a simple but sweeping claim: No one has the right to check the executive outside of quadrennial elections.
Graham wrote that although Trump doesn’t seem to be ideological about this, “[a]dvocates of the so-called unitary executive have sought to harness Trump’s efforts to avoid accountability for his own specific corruption and lawlessness in order to enshrine a more powerful executive branch generally.”
But in Politico, Meredith McGraw and Nahal Toosi cast it mostly as just another partisan squabble, reporting that “Trump’s move infuriated Democrats who say he’s trying to circumvent oversight of his administration, undermining the ability of other branches to hold him accountable.”
And a lot of the coverage has focused on what Linick was investigating that might have ticked Pompeo and Trump off, rather than on Trump’s enthusiasm to get rid of anyone who might hold him accountable.
Finally, reporters have not followed the excellent advice provided on Twitter by Shaub, who resigned his ethics job six months into Trump’s presidency after repeated clashes, and has emerged as a leading political reformer.
Shaub called reporters’ attention to the Inspector General statute, and particularly the section requiring a president to give Congress advance notice of the intent to fire an IG – in order to give Congress time to prevent it. So Trump hasn’t actually fired Linick – he’s just announced that he plans to in 30 days.
Republican Members of Congress haven’t put up real fights for any of the other inspectors general Trump has fired in the last few months. Shaub said reporters should pressure them to stand up for the rule of law:
COVER THIS AS THE START OF A 30-DAY COUNTDOWN! DO YOUR JOB! The assault on the IG’s is late-stage corruption, and Trump’s kicking down one of the last bulwarks that stand between us and the burgeoning corruption-driven authoritarianism. Cover it like you’re a foreign correspondent in a collapsing republic. Because you are.
The closest we’ve come to that is the Washington Post’s James Hohmann, calling attention on Monday to how Trump’s “systemic effort to shield his administration from oversight and accountability has been aided and abetted by the relative silence of congressional Republicans after each move.”
So where are we now?
Chris Megerian, Noah Bierman and Eli Stokols in the Los Angeles Times tried to explain where things stand on Monday, and did so without mincing words:
President Trump has accelerated his attacks on government watchdogs, judges, reporters and other independent voices as he runs for reelection, escalating his spread of disinformation about perceived enemies and his administration’s record during the COVID-19 crisis. Trump fired yet another inspector general, raged against a government whistleblower and repeatedly retweeted video of a local TV reporter being harassed in New York — all since Friday. He also amplified a sinister conspiracy theory he dubbed “Obamagate” in which he alleges, but never specifies, crimes by his predecessor. On Monday, Trump abruptly said he has been taking hydroxychloroquine pills daily for “about a week and a half” as a preventative against the novel coronavirus, dramatically intensifying his efforts to promote an unproved anti-malaria drug that he has touted as a potential “game changer” for dealing with the pandemic.
That’s powerful stuff. But by lumping all those things together, I think the authors risked erasing the distinction between some idiotic thing Trump may (or may not) be doing to himself, and acts that are dangerously authoritarian in nature.
Trump’s growing authoritarianism could end up being the second most important story after the pandemic in the run-up to the November election — especially if Trump sees there are no negative consequences to grabbing more and more power. After all, with no downsides, who knows where he will stop?


presswatchers--2020-05-22--No, the mainstream media shouldn’t give up on persuading Trump supporters of the truth

Media criticism , I am happy to report , is thriving these days .
If you are reading Press Watch , you ’ re not just reading my own media criticism , you ’ re seeing me link to all sorts of other folks making powerful and incisive observations about the political coverage they read and view and hear and how it could be better .
I think it ’ s safe to say that what drives most of us particularly crazy these days is how Donald Trump has exploited the chronic weaknesses of the mainstream political press like never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and short attention span , and how it reflexively resorts to stenography , normalization and false equivalence .
What we want more than anything , of course , is to have an impact – to get reporters and editors at our top institutions to pay attention , consider our arguments , and start doing their jobs more effectively and assertively .
So I ’ m embarrassed to say that when one reporter actually responded to media criticism at some length this week , I missed it , until a reader emailed me about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the Washington Post who writes for its political analysis blog , “ The Fix ” , on Wednesday published a post titled “ 4 overly simplistic criticisms of the media ’ s Trump coverage ” .
Blake , I should note , has not been a target of mine — at least up until now .
Looking through my archives I see I have been consistently impressed by his work .
I ’ ve linked favorably to several of his pieces , including a devastating analysis on March 3 of an event @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s involved in fighting a pandemic and an excellent exegisis on March 21 of Trump ’ s livid rant at NBC reporter Peter Alexander .
But Blake missed the mark in his post on Wednesday .
The “ overly simplistic criticisms ” he discusses are only overly simplistic because he overly simplifies them .
Let ’ s discuss the four criticisms that Blake addressed : 1 .
Trump “ distracts ” the media from news he doesn ’ t want covered But the two views are not mutually exclusive .
Whether or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the media does allow itself to get distracted .
Reporters turn his every crazy statement and new threat into the top story of the day — when right now the top political story of the day , every day , should be some aspect of his continued failure to save American lives during a pandemic .
And in some cases , Trump is very clearly trying to distract the media , in particular by blame-shifting .
As I wrote on April 30 , for instance : 2 .
The media should ignore the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ll go away Blake cites a recent column from the Post ’ s own media writer , Margaret Sullivan , on the over-coverage of “ Obamagate.
” Sullivan wrote that “ we have failed to learn very much , if anything , about how much attention to give exaggerated pseudo-scandals — which in this case should be nothing at all.
” Blake also cites a post about “ Obamagate ” by Vox by writer Sean Illing , who wrote that “ [ t ] here ’ s no point in unpacking this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and everyone knows it.
” Blake himself , by contrast , writes that ignoring things like “ Obamagate ” isn ’ t responsible , given that “ we have an entire media ecosystem in which baseless conspiracy theories can spread like wildfire.
” But there ’ s a more nuanced criticism than Blake acknowledges here .
When Trump spouts conspiracy theories , they shouldn ’ t be covered like they are news -– like they are a controversy with two sides , or like they are a legitimate political issue .
If they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ normal media needs to respond .
In fact , that needs to happen outside of traditional fact-checking , which tends to be ghettoized and passive-voiced .
Fact-checking is fine for false assertions .
The proper news response to malicious conspiracy theories is not just to debunk them , but to explicitly address who ’ s spreading them and why .
At the same time , there are some things Trump says that the media should completely ignore — especially when he ’ s endlessly repeating himself and spreading misinformation during a pandemic .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ March : 3 .
The media fails by not calling Trump ’ s false statements “ lies ” Blake notes that “ Trump has made more than 18,000 false or misleading claims as president , according to The Washington Post ’ s Fact Checker.
” But , he writes : Again , Blake overly simplifies the critique .
Press critics like me aren ’ t saying that everything Trump says that ’ s wrong is and should be called a lie .
We are saying that the impetus behind a given false statement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be addressed .
And while reporters may in some cases not be able to easily and irrefutably discern Trump ’ s motivation , they can still narrow down the options .
In some cases , they can certainly say he is deliberately lying , especially when he has been repeatedly corrected .
In other cases , it ’ s more accurate to say that he ’ s simply being incoherent , or that he appears to be deeply ignorant and clueless , or that he ’ s being delusional , or gaslighting the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrote in March , at the very least news organizations should immediately start adding some sort of warning label every time they quote or paraphrase the president – especially when it comes to a life-or-death public-health issue : 4 .
The media is failing at covering Trump , because skeptical coverage hasn ’ t impacted him It ’ s not that the media has failed to make the case that Trump is dishonest and makes stuff up , Blake argues , it ’ s that Trump supporters don ’ t really seem to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s a cop-out .
I don ’ t think the normal media has tried nearly hard enough to get Trump supporters to understand how profoundly he has failed them –- and the white working class in particular .
Reporters should be looking at what Trump supporters care about , and then assertively describing Trump ’ s record in those areas .
I also think that Trump supporters ’ resistance to the real news is itself a fascinating news story .
I wish more reporters and editors would committ themselves to the kind of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ figure out what ’ s going on there – and figure out if it ’ s curable .
But the biggest failing , I think , comes in how the day-in-day-out coverage of Trump written and broadcast by our major news organizations is intentionally produced in a way not to offend Trump supporters .
When I read or watch mainstream news coverage about Trump I often get the sense that the reporter is putting the facts out there , but making a conscious effort not to reach the obvious conclusion .
They call @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dots.
” Indeed , that ’ s the philosophy that New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet described in a remarkably revealing interview in January .
“ In my mind , I think of the reader , who just wants to pick up his paper in the morning and know what the hell happened — I ’ m beholden to that reader , and I feel obligated to tell that reader what happened , ” Baquet said .
You don ’ t do “ labeling and cheap analysis , ” he said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ lie , he said .
“ Let somebody else call it a lie.
” Baquet and his reporters know that their core audience will successfully connect the dots , so no harm done , right ?
But what about the people who don ’ t connect the dots by themselves ?
In Baquet ’ s world , I ’ m guessing that ’ s a win , too .
Sure , they never really understand the full scope of the story , but if the Times connected the dots for them , those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cancel their subscriptions .
And consider this : New York Times stories don ’ t appear only in the New York Times .
They ’ re highly and lucratively syndicated to news organizations around the country .
I ’ ll bet a lot of those readers don ’ t connect the dots .
But again , that ’ s a win for Baquet & Co. , because those newspapers don ’ t get angry letters from their readers demanding they stop running Times stories .
Yes , I ’ m suggesting that ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Don ’ t connect the dots because it will lose us money .
But that leaves a lot of readers not really getting the full story — a lot of Trump supporters , unreached .
And I can ’ t help but notice that Fox News and its ilk always connect the dots .
So in my view , it ’ s not that normal news organizations are presenting the truth and Trump supporters don ’ t care , as Blake suggests .
It ’ s that normal news organizations aren ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fox News is presenting the lies .

Media criticism, I am happy to report, is thriving these days.
If you are reading Press Watch, you’re not just reading my own media criticism, you’re seeing me link to all sorts of other folks making powerful and incisive observations about the political coverage they read and view and hear and how it could be better.
I think it’s safe to say that what drives most of us particularly crazy these days is how Donald Trump has exploited the chronic weaknesses of the mainstream political press like never before — chief among those its timidity and short attention span, and how it reflexively resorts to stenography, normalization and false equivalence.
What we want more than anything, of course, is to have an impact – to get reporters and editors at our top institutions to pay attention, consider our arguments, and start doing their jobs more effectively and assertively.
So I’m embarrassed to say that when one reporter actually responded to media criticism at some length this week, I missed it, until a reader emailed me about it.
Aaron Blake, a reporter at the Washington Post who writes for its political analysis blog, “The Fix”, on Wednesday published a post titled “4 overly simplistic criticisms of the media’s Trump coverage”.
Blake, I should note, has not been a target of mine — at least up until now. Looking through my archives I see I have been consistently impressed by his work. I’ve linked favorably to several of his pieces, including a devastating analysis on March 3 of an event where Trump displayed profound cluelessness about what’s involved in fighting a pandemic and an excellent exegisis on March 21 of Trump’s livid rant at NBC reporter Peter Alexander.
But Blake missed the mark in his post on Wednesday. The “overly simplistic criticisms” he discusses are only overly simplistic because he overly simplifies them.
Let’s discuss the four criticisms that Blake addressed:
1. Trump “distracts” the media from news he doesn’t want covered
Blake’s view:
This argument has always struck me as giving Trump too much credit. He’s thin-skinned and he’s impulsive, and there is myriad evidence to suggest that much of this is just Trump being Trump.
But the two views are not mutually exclusive. Whether or not Trump does it on purpose, the media does allow itself to get distracted. Reporters turn his every crazy statement and new threat into the top story of the day — when right now the top political story of the day, every day, should be some aspect of his continued failure to save American lives during a pandemic.
And in some cases, Trump is very clearly trying to distract the media, in particular by blame-shifting. As I wrote on April 30, for instance:
In a transparent attempt to distract from his continuing failure to lead an effective response to a disastrous public health crisis, the great showrunner in the White House is in the process of introducing a new story arc: an epic battle with an evil China.
2. The media should ignore the crazy things Trump says and then they’ll go away
Blake cites a recent column from the Post’s own media writer, Margaret Sullivan, on the over-coverage of “Obamagate.” Sullivan wrote that “we have failed to learn very much, if anything, about how much attention to give exaggerated pseudo-scandals — which in this case should be nothing at all.”
Blake also cites a post about “Obamagate” by Vox by writer Sean Illing, who wrote that “[t]here’s no point in unpacking this theory here because it’s bullshit and everyone knows it.”
Blake himself, by contrast, writes that ignoring things like “Obamagate” isn’t responsible, given that “we have an entire media ecosystem in which baseless conspiracy theories can spread like wildfire.”
But there’s a more nuanced criticism than Blake acknowledges here.
When Trump spouts conspiracy theories, they shouldn’t be covered like they are news -– like they are a controversy with two sides, or like they are a legitimate political issue.
If they are spreading, then yes, the normal media needs to respond. In fact, that needs to happen outside of traditional fact-checking, which tends to be ghettoized and passive-voiced.
Fact-checking is fine for false assertions. The proper news response to malicious conspiracy theories is not just to debunk them, but to explicitly address who’s spreading them and why.
At the same time, there are some things Trump says that the media should completely ignore — especially when he’s endlessly repeating himself and spreading misinformation during a pandemic. Here’s what I wrote in March:
At a time when accurate information could save lives and disinformation could kill, Donald Trump continues to tell self-aggrandizing lies and political journalists continue to put them in their headlines… [G]oing forward, the most vital message reporters should convey about Trump – over and over again — is that he is out of touch with reality and failing to lead. And in the absence of that leadership, our elite newsrooms need to step up. This is a time for our nation’s best journalists to enable our nation’s smartest people to set the agenda, rather than waiting for the White House to do it.
3. The media fails by not calling Trump’s false statements “lies”
Blake notes that “Trump has made more than 18,000 false or misleading claims as president, according to The Washington Post’s Fact Checker.” But, he writes:
The call-it-a-lie pushback kind of misses the forest for the trees. And that point is this: Is it really better that a president might be so fundamentally unfamiliar with basic facts? That’s very arguably a bigger indictment of his presidency than anything else. Is being nefarious better than being devoid of any understanding of the kind of facts that any regular person — much less someone tasked with running this country — should grasp?
Again, Blake overly simplifies the critique. Press critics like me aren’t saying that everything Trump says that’s wrong is and should be called a lie. We are saying that the impetus behind a given false statement — whatever it is — needs to be addressed.
And while reporters may in some cases not be able to easily and irrefutably discern Trump’s motivation, they can still narrow down the options. In some cases, they can certainly say he is deliberately lying, especially when he has been repeatedly corrected. In other cases, it’s more accurate to say that he’s simply being incoherent, or that he appears to be deeply ignorant and clueless, or that he’s being delusional, or gaslighting the public, or both.
As I wrote in March, at the very least news organizations should immediately start adding some sort of warning label every time they quote or paraphrase the president – especially when it comes to a life-or-death public-health issue:
I recommend some variation of the language from a recent Washington Post article – noting that “[m]uch of what Trump has said has been contradictory or false” – or a recent New York Times article – saying that “Trump has continually made false statements and misinformed the public about the severity of [the] virus” – along with something to the effect of “some of his assertions indicate either delusion or an attempt to make the public doubt their own sense of reality.”
4. The media is failing at covering Trump, because skeptical coverage hasn’t impacted him
It’s not that the media has failed to make the case that Trump is dishonest and makes stuff up, Blake argues, it’s that Trump supporters don’t really seem to care:
It may simply be a time in which 4 in 10 Americans will support whoever is speaking to their concerns and partisan predilections — and that they care significantly less about the details.
But I think that’s a cop-out. I don’t think the normal media has tried nearly hard enough to get Trump supporters to understand how profoundly he has failed them –- and the white working class in particular. Reporters should be looking at what Trump supporters care about, and then assertively describing Trump’s record in those areas.
I also think that Trump supporters’ resistance to the real news is itself a fascinating news story. I wish more reporters and editors would committ themselves to the kind of intensive, empathetic interviews necessary to really figure out what’s going on there – and figure out if it’s curable.
But the biggest failing, I think, comes in how the day-in-day-out coverage of Trump written and broadcast by our major news organizations is intentionally produced in a way not to offend Trump supporters.
When I read or watch mainstream news coverage about Trump I often get the sense that the reporter is putting the facts out there, but making a conscious effort not to reach the obvious conclusion. They call that “letting the reader connect the dots.”
Indeed, that’s the philosophy that New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet described in a remarkably revealing interview in January.
“In my mind, I think of the reader, who just wants to pick up his paper in the morning and know what the hell happened — I’m beholden to that reader, and I feel obligated to tell that reader what happened,” Baquet said.
You don’t do “labeling and cheap analysis,” he said. You don’t call it a lie, he said. “Let somebody else call it a lie.”
Baquet and his reporters know that their core audience will successfully connect the dots, so no harm done, right?
But what about the people who don’t connect the dots by themselves? In Baquet’s world, I’m guessing that’s a win, too. Sure, they never really understand the full scope of the story, but if the Times connected the dots for them, those people might get upset. They might cancel their subscriptions.
And consider this: New York Times stories don’t appear only in the New York Times. They’re highly and lucratively syndicated to news organizations around the country. I’ll bet a lot of those readers don’t connect the dots.
But again, that’s a win for Baquet & Co., because those newspapers don’t get angry letters from their readers demanding they stop running Times stories.
Yes, I’m suggesting that’s the industry’s business model: Don’t connect the dots because it will lose us money.
But that leaves a lot of readers not really getting the full story — a lot of Trump supporters, unreached.
And I can’t help but notice that Fox News and its ilk always connect the dots.
So in my view, it’s not that normal news organizations are presenting the truth and Trump supporters don’t care, as Blake suggests.
It’s that normal news organizations aren’t presenting the truth as assertively as Fox News is presenting the lies.


presswatchers--2020-05-21--The critical subtext for Trump’s rage against mail-in ballots is that he wants the minority to rule

Political reporters from our top news organizations aren ’ t falling for Donald Trump ’ s transparently deceitful campaign to demonize mail-in voting , but they aren ’ t exactly calling it out for what it is , either .
The good news is that they ’ re not relying on their fallback position when the two political parties are at odds , which is to present both sides as valid and let the readers and viewers decide .
They ’ re flat-out saying Trump ’ s claims are bogus – “ there is no evidence that mail-in voting leads @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s George Stephanopoulos said Thursday morning .
They ’ re describing his motive as overtly partisan – which Trump himself has frequently avowed , for instance by tweeting that mail-in voting “ doesn ’ t work out well for Republicans ” .
They ’ re pointing out that he doesn ’ t criticize Republican governors who advocate for mail-in voting , only Democrats .
They ’ re noting that Trump himself votes by mail .
They ’ re warning readers that voting access “ has become a major battleground in the 2020 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ writing that “ some Democrats ” are worrying that Trump ’ s “ pattern of insinuations about voting fraud… are a prelude to potential efforts by Republicans to dispute the outcome in November if Mr. Trump loses.
” ( Hint : It ’ s not just “ some Democrats.
” ) But what they ’ re not doing is putting this latest attempt at voter suppression in its essential context : as part of a massive Republican program to create the possibility of minority rule .
The essential promise of democracy – that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the people who get the most votes win – has never been fully realized in the United States , and it has taken some extra big hits as of late .
Just in the last two decades , the Electoral College has twice granted the presidency to someone who lost the popular vote .
The citizens of small states get wildly disproportionate representation in the Senate .
Both parties historically — but these days overwhelmingly the Republicans – have gerrymandered voting districts in the states to create wildly lopsided Congressional delegations .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ core , sees the browning of America as a sign of long-term electoral doom , unless it can prevent certain demographics from voting in large numbers .
And Trump has shown no ability to expand his base , such that his only winning ploy is to subtract from the Democrats ’ .
Here ’ s how New York Times opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie phrased it last month : Demonizing mail-in voting during a pandemic is actually no more ridiculous than demanding Voter ID when in-person voter fraud is statistically nonexistent .
What they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intimidation of voter registration groups , purges of voter rolls , poll watching , and aggressive white challenges of “ suspicious ” ballots , is their singular goal : blocking legitimate but probably Democratic voters from exercising their constitutional rights .
The pursuit of that goal ostensibly in the name of voter fraud is an outrageous deception that only works if the press is too timid to call it what it really is .
And over the last decade , reporters have been less willing to be played .
Hooray .
But now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out in the news columns , should reporters portray it simply as a dispute — or as an outrage and a travesty of justice ?
News organizations should not take partisan positions , but voting has nothing to do with partisanship — even if all the people suppressing it happen to be on one side .
( Ironically , rural Republican could be the ones most hurt by attacks on mail-in balloting . )
Exposing and expressing outrage over voter suppression has to do with whether you believe in the most fundamental principles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ equality , whether you think lies should flourish , and , at the end of the day , whether you think elected officials should be held accountable – because at this point , the only accountability mechanism left standing is voting .
This would be in the same tradition as news organizations whose coverage bravely exposed the evils of slavery , supported the civil rights movement , contradicted the government about Vietnam and Iraq , and refused to equivocate about whether climate change is real .
It ’ s a proud bunch .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s one example to watch : Last November , The Guardian launched an ongoing series of stories under the rubric , “ The fight to vote “ , its avowed goal to “ investigate systemic voter suppression and how it undermines democracy in the United States.
” One recent article looks specifically at “ how the president could take advantage of the way voting procedures are rapidly changing in response to Covid-19 and question the legitimacy of election results in November.
” Mainstream journalists shouldn ’ t be afraid of being called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re doing is standing up for basic constitutional rights .
Indeed , the greater danger is that the public condemns them — or even worse , stops paying attention to them — for having no convictions at all .
Taking a bolder stance wouldn ’ t even necessarily require that much — maybe just some fiddling with lead paragraphs to make them a bit less stenographic , adding a bit of essential background somewhere near the top , stating certain things as fact rather than attributing them to “ critics , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of solid information aren ’ t written in such an equanimous way that they get headlines like this : This is a defining moment for our major news organizations .
As MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes tweeted on Wednesday :

Political reporters from our top news organizations aren’t falling for Donald Trump’s transparently deceitful campaign to demonize mail-in voting, but they aren’t exactly calling it out for what it is, either.
The good news is that they’re not relying on their fallback position when the two political parties are at odds, which is to present both sides as valid and let the readers and viewers decide.
They’re flat-out saying Trump’s claims are bogus – “there is no evidence that mail-in voting leads to widespread voter fraud,” ABC’s George Stephanopoulos said Thursday morning.
They’re describing his motive as overtly partisan – which Trump himself has frequently avowed, for instance by tweeting that mail-in voting “doesn’t work out well for Republicans”.
They’re pointing out that he doesn’t criticize Republican governors who advocate for mail-in voting, only Democrats.
They’re noting that Trump himself votes by mail.
They’re warning readers that voting access “has become a major battleground in the 2020 presidential race.
And they’re writing that “some Democrats” are worrying that Trump’s “pattern of insinuations about voting fraud… are a prelude to potential efforts by Republicans to dispute the outcome in November if Mr. Trump loses.” (Hint: It’s not just “some Democrats.”)
But what they’re not doing is putting this latest attempt at voter suppression in its essential context: as part of a massive Republican program to create the possibility of minority rule.
The essential promise of democracy – that everyone has a vote, and that the people who get the most votes win – has never been fully realized in the United States, and it has taken some extra big hits as of late. Just in the last two decades, the Electoral College has twice granted the presidency to someone who lost the popular vote. The citizens of small states get wildly disproportionate representation in the Senate. Both parties historically — but these days overwhelmingly the Republicans – have gerrymandered voting districts in the states to create wildly lopsided Congressional delegations.
The Republican Party, with its white nationalist core, sees the browning of America as a sign of long-term electoral doom, unless it can prevent certain demographics from voting in large numbers. And Trump has shown no ability to expand his base, such that his only winning ploy is to subtract from the Democrats’.
Here’s how New York Times opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie phrased it last month:
Republicans do not believe they can persuade a majority of voters to support their agenda. They’ve practically given up trying. And so they fight to exclude Democratic-leaning voters from the electorate and work to lock the Republican Party’s current advantage into the system itself, to bend and break the rules so that the public can’t actually translate its preferences into power. Rather than do the work of democracy they’ve decided instead to limit democracy itself.
Demonizing mail-in voting during a pandemic is actually no more ridiculous than demanding Voter ID when in-person voter fraud is statistically nonexistent. What they have in common, along with the intimidation of voter registration groups, purges of voter rolls, poll watching, and aggressive white challenges of “suspicious” ballots, is their singular goal: blocking legitimate but probably Democratic voters from exercising their constitutional rights.
The pursuit of that goal ostensibly in the name of voter fraud is an outrageous deception that only works if the press is too timid to call it what it really is. And over the last decade, reporters have been less willing to be played. Hooray.
But now the question is: Beyond calling it out in the news columns, should reporters portray it simply as a dispute — or as an outrage and a travesty of justice?
News organizations should not take partisan positions, but voting has nothing to do with partisanship — even if all the people suppressing it happen to be on one side. (Ironically, rural Republican could be the ones most hurt by attacks on mail-in balloting.)
Exposing and expressing outrage over voter suppression has to do with whether you believe in the most fundamental principles of democracy, whether you believe in equality, whether you think lies should flourish, and, at the end of the day, whether you think elected officials should be held accountable – because at this point, the only accountability mechanism left standing is voting.
This would be in the same tradition as news organizations whose coverage bravely exposed the evils of slavery, supported the civil rights movement, contradicted the government about Vietnam and Iraq, and refused to equivocate about whether climate change is real. It’s a proud bunch. They made the right call.
Here’s one example to watch: Last November, The Guardian launched an ongoing series of stories under the rubric, “The fight to vote“, its avowed goal to “investigate systemic voter suppression and how it undermines democracy in the United States.” One recent article looks specifically at “how the president could take advantage of the way voting procedures are rapidly changing in response to Covid-19 and question the legitimacy of election results in November.”
Mainstream journalists shouldn’t be afraid of being called out for taking sides when what they’re doing is standing up for basic constitutional rights. Indeed, the greater danger is that the public condemns them — or even worse, stops paying attention to them — for having no convictions at all.
Taking a bolder stance wouldn’t even necessarily require that much — maybe just some fiddling with lead paragraphs to make them a bit less stenographic, adding a bit of essential background somewhere near the top, stating certain things as fact rather than attributing them to “critics,” and making sure that articles with lots of solid information aren’t written in such an equanimous way that they get headlines like this:
GOP FORMALLY ADOPTS ILLEGAL STRATEGY OF NATIONAL VOTER DISENFRANCHISEMENT.
Fixed your disgraceful headline @nytimes. WTF is wrong with you?@letamericavote pic.twitter.com/iZ63P4kHHE — Bradley Whitford (@BradleyWhitford) May 20, 2020
This is a defining moment for our major news organizations. As MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes tweeted on Wednesday: