The Media’s 2024 Mea Culpa Will End The Same Way In 2016

The Washington Post published a bizarre part mea culpa, part manifesto from 10 of the most influential figures in legacy media to dissect how they might operate under a second Trump presidency.

On Tuesday, the Post reported Trump’s first term “boosted ratings and readership,” but “it remains unclear whether it could happen again.”

“Back then, outlets tried to cover a torrent of breaking stories and controversies while simultaneously taking flak from the president and his supporters on the right, as well as scorching criticism from the left,” wrote the Post’s Jeremy Barr. “None of that will probably change, but what could be different this time, if anything?”

Those who participated expressed an obvious frustration with the state of the media after President Trump successfully capitalized on independent programming to circumvent the routine hostility from network television. While Vice President Kamala Harris ran a walled off campaign focused on interviews with friendly hosts, Trump not only engaged with the typical antagonists in the corporate press but was also able to contrast those interviews with long form discussions on popular podcasts. Trump’s appearances on Joe Rogan, Theo Von, and Andrew Schulz allowed the former and future president to present an authentic image of himself that was absent from Harris’s conventional machine-driven campaign.

Now the corporate press, which is operating with historically low trust from listeners and readers, is obviously anxious on how to win back public confidence.

“Legacy media is in a bubble, and it’s time to pop it,” said Katie Couric, a former anchor of CBS Evening News and veteran host of NBC’s “Today.” “One way to do that is to spend less time with pundits at a desk or table and more time out in the field talking to real people who will be impacted by the Trump administration’s policies, for better or for worse.”

Couric recommended news organizations “find a few Americans who were big Trump supporters and chronicle their lives to see if they improve.”

But it’s not as if the more than 77 million Americans who voted for Trump were ever in hiding. If journalists are having trouble finding Trump voters to speak with them, the more likely explanation requires a genuine reflection on the past eight years of coverage. Nobody wants to put their name and reputation on the line in an interview with a nationwide paper reporting with a predetermined narrative. Almost nobody in Springfield, Ohio, for example, would go on record to speak about the consequences of overwhelming migration, lest the press leap at the opportunity to call them racist.

The responses given from Couric’s colleagues in the media cast doubt whether this year’s mea culpa on how to responsibly cover the nation after Trump’s triumphant win will last to inauguration.

“The press often fails us by treating Trump like just another political figure. In the pursuit of ‘objectivity,’ journalists often lean into false equivalency, suggesting that Trump’s lies and divisiveness are somehow on par with the actions of Democratic figures,” said ex-CNN anchor Don Lemon. “The truth is, some things are just objectively bad. Trump’s rhetoric isn’t divisive; it’s dangerous. His record on democracy isn’t debatable; it’s a matter of fact.”

Good luck to any Republicans who decide to speak to that guy.

David Remnick, an editor of the New Yorker, was almost as defiant.

“I think, to some degree, we should be self-critical, but we should stop apologizing for everything we do,” he said. “If we’re going to go into a mode where we’re doing nothing but apologizing and falling into a faint and accepting a false picture of reality because we think that’s what fairness demands, then I think we’re making an enormous mistake.”

“I just don’t think we should throw up our hands and accede to reality as it is seen through the lens of Donald Trump,” Remnick added.

Jill Abramson, a former executive editor of The New York Times, suggested newspapers actively monitor conservative media.

“Assign at least one reporter to monitor and listen to right-wing media, the same influencers and podcasts where MAGA world and Trump get their (often dubious) information and ‘news,’” she said. The idea that news organizations were not already doing this might explain how the press had failed to accurately report on so many major stories since Trump first took office in 2017.

A more cynical explanation for the media’s failures might be that the press was out to get Republicans anyway. After all, media giants faced a similar reckoning after Trump’s triumphant win in 2016, only to spend years giving legitimacy to every single hoax peddled by the Democrats under his first term.

Tristan Justice is a national correspondent for The Federalist and the co-author of “Fat and Unhappy: How ‘Body Positivity’ Is Killing Us (and How to Save Yourself).” He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at [email protected]. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here. Buy “Fat and Unhappy” here.