| | | How to Cover a Charlatan Like Trump
Nicholas Kristof SEPT. 24, 2016
nytimes.com
WITH presidential debates approaching, we in journalism are locked in a fierce dispute: How should we report on a duplicitous demagogue?Traditionally, American reporters respond to a controversy by quoting people on each side and letting the public decide. Some of us have argued that this approach hasn’t worked in this election cycle, and that we in the media (particularly some in cable television) have enabled a charlatan by handing him the microphone and not adequately fact-checking what he says.
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?
Frankly, we should be discomfited that many Americans have absorbed the idea that Hillary Clinton is less honest than Donald Trump, giving Trump an edge in polls of trustworthiness.
Hello? There is no comparison.
One commonly cited example of Clinton’s lying is her false claim in 2008 that when she was first lady she came under sniper fire after her plane landed in Bosnia. In contrast, with Trump, you don’t need to go back eight years: One examination found he averages a lie or an inaccuracy in every five minutes of speaking.
Yet I can see how the endless media coverage of Clinton’s email evasiveness might incline some casual voters to perceive Trump as the more honest figure. Of course we should cover Clinton’s sins, but when the public believes that a mythomaniac like Trump is the straight shooter, we owe it to ourselves and the country to wrestle with knotty questions of false equivalence.
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. We are normalizing lies and extremism.
Lately, news organizations have displayed greater resolve, including a blunt willingness to refer to egregious Trump falsehoods as “lies.” I hope we’ve reached a turning point that will frame the debates.
</snip> Read the rest here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/opinion/sunday/how-to-cover-a-charlatan-like-trump.html |
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