How to Cover a Charlatan Like Trump
If a known con artist peddles a potion that he claims will make people lose 25 pounds and enjoy a better sex life, we don’t just quote the man and a critic; we find ways to signal to readers that he’s a fraud. Why should it be different when the con man runs for president?
.. In watching the campaign coverage this year, I’ve sometimes had the same distressing feeling I felt in the run-up to the war in Iraq — that we in the media were greasing the skids to a bad outcome for our country. In the debate about invading Iraq, news organizations scrupulously quoted each side but didn’t adequately signal what was obvious to anyone reporting in the region: that we would be welcomed in Iraq not with flowers but with bombs. In our effort to avoid partisanship, we let our country down.
.. When some in cable TV cover Trump endlessly without sufficiently fact-checking his statements or noting how extreme his positions are, because he is great for ratings and makes money for media companies, we are again failing the country.
.. Skeptics note that more rigorous coverage might not make a difference; Only 6 percent of Americans say they have a great deal of confidence in the press. After all, few facts are clearer than that President Obama was born in the United States, yet only 62 percent of American voters say he was born here.
.. In the early 1950s, journalists were also faced with how to cover a manipulative demagogue — Senator Joe McCarthy — and traditional evenhandedness wasn’t serving the public interest. We honor Edward R. Murrow for breaking with journalistic convention and standing up to McCarthy, saying: “This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent.”
.. to expose charlatans is not partisanship, but simply good journalism.