“Donald Trump’s election has really undermined America’s democratic prestige in China,” offered Claremont McKenna College Professor Minxin Pei on a recent hour of The Diane Rehm Show, public radio from our nation’s capital. When Pei added that it has “set back the prospect of democracy in China for years,” Mrs. Rehm let out an audible moan.
Then Diane asked her guests, “as members of the press” what they “make” of President-Elect Trump’s “rejection of his meeting with The New York Times.”
“It seems,” bemoaned James Fallows, the Atlantic’s national correspondent, “a continuation of his not having any normal press conferences, dealing entirely outside normal press channels and seeming not to recognize the legitimacy of this part of the democratic fabric.”
“I don’t know anything about the specific details about the New York Times meeting,” admitted the Financial Times’ Geoff Dyer. Still, that didn’t stop Dyer from announcing that, “But it’s part of a pattern . . . to a much more conflict-ual, antagonistic, almost bullying relationship with the media.”
Elizabeth Economy, with the Council on Foreign Relations, found it “disturbing” that Donald Trump thinks “he can be his own media, he can simply tweet out whatever he wants, he can make his homegrown videos and sort of impart his information directly to the American public, without the mediating influence of the media.”
Let’s welcome Elizabeth to America.
“We are all recognizing we’re on new terrain now and need to find some way to keep telling the truth, or our best approximation of it, in very different circumstances,” concluded Fallows ominously.
Trump, as you’ll recall, did wind up attending that meeting at The Times.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
5 replies on “Prestige, Trump & the Media”
“We are all recognizing we’re on new terrain now and need to find some way to keep telling the truth, or our best approximation of it, in very different circumstances,” concluded Fallows ominously.
Our best approximation of the truth??????
…. We are all recognizing we’re on new terrain now and need to find some way to keep telling our best approximation of the truth, in very different circumstances ….
An
Alcoholic’s — one might reasonably assume — and/or a Freudian slip.
The press, print and network broadcast, are clearly having difficulty adjusting to the new and multiple channels of information dissemination. Their job is changing and they are losing a monopoly they once enjoyed and have recently attempted to abuse.
Their responsibilities to fact cheek and investigate are increasing as news dissemination becomes almost instantaneous and universal.
Their resent problem relates to this last election cycle which laid bare their bias and pervasive editorializing on the front page, where the actual new once appeared. They have severely compromising their credibility as to reporting of unbiased facts or truth. They must learn that their “best approximation of the truth” is not good enough in this new electronic world.
I suspect the “truth” is going to be harder to hide or spin as time goes on – which should be beneficial.
I expect them to complain but doubt I will commiserate.
It doesn’t matter what Trump does or does not do; the media will be after his scalp every day and in every way. Trump is perfectly aware of the situation, and unlike professional politicians of the past, he is not planning to meekly kowtow to the “power of the press”.
Did Jim Fallows or any of the other members of the press have similar concerns when Hillary Clinton refused to give press conferences and practically went into hiding at various points during the campaign?
Pardon my laughter, but these people are just too funny!