Trump's White House Versus the Press: Cutting Through the Hyperbole

A Rocky Relationship:

Given the tumultuous history between Mr. Trump and the media, none of us should be caught off guard by the White House’s decision to use its authority to curb the effectiveness of the news media. As several outlets have reported, the Trump administration has elected to limit and prohibit live coverage from certain press briefings. The president knows from experience that, in our fast-paced society, editing matters and soundbites shape a story. By limiting the frequency of live and televised briefings, Trump limits the number of potentially damaging soundbites the media can use against him and his administration. In my view, this is effectively a power play by the Trump administration meant to remind the media where they fall along the power axis.

The medium of television makes manipulating a message completely seamless, through the magic of editing. Trump, being the seasoned reality television star that he is, knows this and came up with an effective way to circumvent this inconvenience. By limiting both the news media’s access to the message and the tools by which they cover that message, the White House is proclaiming itself the dominant institution among two key players within the American socio-political system: The Executive Branch and the Press. The question you should be asking yourself now is, “Is the media truly biased toward Trump?” The short answer? Yes, but it’s not that simple.

In 2016, Poynter reported on media bias directed toward Mr. Trump during his presidential campaign. Poynter’s Melody Kramer interviewed Dr. Dave D’Alessio, associate professor of communications at the University of Connecticut, who clarified that “the very nature of bias is that it’s perception…Basically whenever people are engaged in an issue – and there’s no one more engaged than a presidential candidate – they see coverage as biased against their position”. D’Alessio cited media bias in presidential campaigns going all the way back to Thomas Jefferson.

In other words, media bias is not a new phenomenon and Trump is by no means being singled out.

When asked if the 2016 election had been “substantially different than previous election cycles, with regard to media bias, D’Alessio acknowledged that it “It’s more vociferous”. That translates to the media has gotten louder and become more present. Lucky us.

So, to claim that the media has been more biased toward Trump than toward previous candidates and presidents is not wrong if one considers how aggressive and clamorous the coverage has been. While the bias itself may be par for the course, the degree to which that biased coverage is reported through the disparate (and plentiful) mediums (social media, television, radio, podcasts, independent news outlets, blogs, vlogs, etc.) makes it a matter of fact that the relationship between Trump and the media is untraditionally inharmonious. This is due, if for no other reason, to the sheer volume of coverage surrounding him.

Okay, Trump Curbed the Biased Media. What’s the Problem?

There are a number of problems with Mr. Trump’s strategy. That said, if you’re hoping I will argue for unconstitutionality of this maneuver, you’re going to be disappointed. The media has not been shut out. The free press still very much exists. Pretending otherwise is disingenuous and reveals your naïveté and western-centrism. You may counter that the Trump administration is systematically becoming more authoritarian, a sort of creeping fascism, and that maneuvers like this apparently anti-media attack are epitomic of the GOP’s end game…whatever that means. The problem with those claims is that they are terribly insulting to the citizens of countries where actual authoritarianism exists and where people are forced to get their news from approved, state-sponsored sources; places like China, Gaza, North Korea, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Cuba, etc.

If you want to see what real media censorship looks like, Poynter provides a list here. Similarly, Reporters Without Borders reported that the threats facing America’s free press are nowhere near the levels of countries in the Middle East and North Africa. On the other hand, just because journalists are not being imprisoned and executed like elsewhere, does that mean we truly practice free speech and allow persons to disseminate information freely? You tell me. Do the names Snowden or Manning ring a bell? On the other hand, Manning was pardoned and released seven years into her 35-year sentence.

The point I am making is this: Yes, the U.S. press is still free, but restrictions and manipulations of the institution come in waves and depend on who is in power at the time. The government’s ability to manipulate and restrict the media is nothing new in American history. Recently, Tom Head wrote a succinct history here outlining the significant cases over the last 200+ years when members of the U.S. government faced off against the press, from President Adams to Sheriff Arpaio. In the end, however, the Supreme Court stepped up to the plate to uphold the 1st Amendment thereby protecting freedom of the press and freedom of speech. This happened as recently as June, 2017 when the Supreme Court upheld offensive trademarks as a form of free speech.

So, while Trump’s limitations to how the news media can document certain press briefings seems like a flagrant violation of the 1st Amendment, the fact is, it is not. Curbing the media is not unprecedented in American history and we seem to get through these hiccups with innovation. Take CNN’s clever implementation of a sketch artist to document press briefings, as an example. 30 years ago, the Christian Science Monitor also reported on Reagan’s intentional avoidance of television cameras and Sam Donaldson’s innovative technique of shouting questions of the president whenever Reagan was in earshot.

We already know that by limiting the public's access to televised press briefings, the Trump administration implies that the White House is in control. More than that though, this change realigns society's entire power structure by placing certain media members further apart from the public. Those few journalists inside the briefing room are privileged to information few others have access to. This fact fosters divisiveness even among members of the same news channel. It also forces the public to rely on the ethics and journalistic integrity of a very select few.   

See, the public's free access to the briefings allow us to see and hear everything ourselves without having to rely on the trustworthiness of the source. Think CSPAN's undoctored, gavel-to-gavel congressional coverage. Boring as hell? Usually. Essential to democracy? Absolutely.

Right now, our major news outlets (CNN, MSNSC, and Fox News) do not market the press briefings according to CSPAN's unfiltered programming style. Rather, these companies alter the footage (post-briefing), take phrases out of context, and condense the overall message and mess-ups into clips and soundbites to prepare them for public consumption. The issue with that? The message gets distorted. What was actually meant by a speaker may be twisted because people are only getting bits and pieces of the overall message. We only get bits and pieces because that's all we usually have time to listen to, and it's what we prefer apparently, according to Pew Research. (check email draft for link)

My Position:

Although our current news system does not treat press briefings like congressional hearings, it would be a great benefit to democracy if they did. More importantly, if the public participated more closely in the political system, perhaps a candidate like Trump would have been laughed off the stage when he first announced his bid for the presidency in 2015. But, instead, we take our free press for granted and rely on corporate news organizations with ulterior motives to chew up current events and spit them into our mouths as if we were little baby birds.  

In a free market, when news channels manipulate the message being delivered, that channel risks damaging its reputation among its viewers. Therefore, because of the financial investment involved and the channel's need for capital, they do not take risks by altering the message to the public unless the public demands it be altered for their pleasure. We don't have a free market though. We have a corporate-owned market heavily regulated by the government in all the wrong places and to all the wrong degrees.

Our slanted market, coupled with incentives for the corporate media to boost its ratings by giving people what they want -- even if that includes fake news, shoddy logic, hyperbole, and mind-blowingly biased reporting -- makes producing and marketing real news incredibly challenging. Honest coverage, like CSPAN, is ignored and talking heads like Maddow get all the air time. Yikes.

My position is this: We brought this whole situation on ourselves through our complacency and by accepting the erroneous notions that we really are powerlessness when it comes to shaping our nation’s political culture. We allowed the news media to morph into infotainment, reality television programming, and we’re upset that national leadership is responding accordingly. Ultimately, the White House's decision to bar television cameras and live audio recordings from more briefings is both good and bad. While the bad is certainly self-evident, and I have already elucidated that aspect, there is also a silver lining.

Finding the Good:

As I mentioned earlier, our corporate media structure is not conducive to providing the most benefit with the least harm to the public. Yes, it works out great for the owners and shareholders of these companies, but the service rendered is not worth the long-term price of dumbing down our nation one soundbite and poorly argued segment at a time. Therefore, the White House's strategy of weakening the role of television broadcasting essentially works for the public's benefit in some ways. Hear me out.

By forcing people to turn to recorded audio and transcripts for press briefing coverage, the people are forced to participate more fully in the political system. They have to read transcripts or they have to listen to the audio. No longer can the public rely on regurgitated stories and curated clips published by corporate media giants hoping to achieve the ratings necessary to sell time slots to advertising companies. Granted, the potentiality for soundbites still exists because audio recordings still exist, but sound is not nearly as marketable as a personality on the TV. If you don't think that's true, look at SNL. They are enjoying their highest ratings in over 20 years thanks to the televised missteps of politicians and their marketable personalities (I’m looking at you, Sean Spicer)

To be clear, the press is not being locked out of the press briefings. The tools to which they have access during the briefings are being limited. The tools, in this case, are television cameras and live-streaming audio software. Now, whether you believe the media used their tools inappropriately and deserve the White House's punishment is irrelevant. The fact is, the tools have been taken away, and a lot of people are worried about this because of the possibility of a slippery slope. Will Trump revoke recording privileges next? Will he disallow any and all forms of documentation? Will he shut out the media altogether? Doubtful. Also, history indicates that the Supreme Court will not allow such a travesty to occur.

Concluding with the Silver Lining

As of now, the media is not being shut out of the briefing room, they are just not allowed to live stream the briefing. Recording devices are still allowed, note taking is permissible, photographs are allowed, and transcripts of the audio provide all the documentation necessary to maintain a functioning democracy, free press and all. In fact, C-SPAN provides the full audio and transcripts of the White House Daily Briefings on their website. If you're interested in comparing the quality of an untelevised press briefing with a televised one, here's the link. You just might have to admit the focus is certainly on the content and not the courier. If you can admit that to be true, you can accept my case for the goodness of the White House’s change.

So, let’s not delude ourselves and turn this situation into something it is not. Headlines that announce the end of American democracy are hyperbolic and serve no purpose other than fostering more divisiveness and fear mongering. Further, in so doing these reports minimize situations where actual media censorship and authoritarianism exists. Meaning, we may not recognize a totalitarian takeover or take it as seriously if such conditions ever arise here.

Our press is still free. Our democracy still works as well as it has always has. The Trump White House asserted itself to hold the media accountable for its historically shoddy and biased reporting. That is a good thing, and the press has responded in kind through innovation. That is also a good thing. Still, as active and involved citizens, we must remain vigilant to ensure both our free speech and free press are never truly compromised.