How the media should cover this deranged president

Three suggestions—with illustrations—to counter the rampant 'sane-washing'

The moment I saw Trump’s crazy and dangerous Truth Social post on the morning of Easter Sunday, I could imagine the freakout in newsrooms across the country. The essence of it would be something like this: “How much of this do we publish? How do we report this without breaking with every one of our standards and traditions?”

The post, which you may have seen, looked like this:

Even for those of us who follow Trump’s utterances on a regular basis, and are all too accustomed to his all-caps lunatic ravings, this was shocking.

As author and historian Garrett Graff aptly put it in his newsletter: “It was, by any measure, the most unhinged public comment by any president in U.S. history.”

Later in the day, and by Monday morning, it was easy to see the results of all those internal discussions.

“Expletive-filled threat,” said the AP.

“Profane” and “expletive-laden,” said the Washington Post.

“Expletive-filled ultimatum,” said USA Today.

Many of the traditional outlets did not reproduce the post itself, and many of them chose not to include, in the body of their stories, the phrase “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards.” The broadcast networks certainly didn’t go there. Jake Tapper of CNN warned his watchers and did repeat the full wording.

In their Washington Post newsletter, Early Brief, reporters Matthew Choi and Dan Merica explained why they didn’t, as they wrote about Trump’s post.

“He … used a word we’re not allowed to publish in this newsletter.” The Post’s news story, as opposed to the newsletter, did include the words.

The New York Times used the full language in several stories, both online and in print — significantly more than what I initially noted here. Assistant Managing Editor Patrick Healy provided information in an email to me Tuesday morning and shared some of the backstory about that decision-making, including why the “fuckin’ strait” language did not appear in Monday’s front-page news story by Edward Wong. (For those interested in this behind-the-scenes detail at the Times, scroll to the bottom of this post.)

Wong’s front-page print story Monday bore this headline: “Trump Revels in Making Emphatic Threats to Commit War Crimes.” I’m sure the decision to put “war crimes” in that headline, and in the well-reported story by Edward Wong, took some discussion; but even so, the display and the headline words seemed to normalize — as if to say '“here’s our news story about what happened this weekend, expressed in the kind of language we tend to use.”

Based on my survey of regional-newspaper front pages on Monday morning, very few came anywhere near rising to the occasion. Many chose not to feature the story at all on their A1, or to give it much emphasis. The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Los Angeles Times did relatively well, leading their front pages with it. Both used Trump’s full language high up in their front-page story.

There’s been a lot of talk — including here — about the media’s disastrous tendency to “sane-wash” Trump.

It comes down to this: The press, because of its own conventions and time-honored practices, normalizes him, and thus fails to get across the extreme nature of this president’s behavior. Ten years of sane-washing have had their effect. He remains in power, reelected, undeterred.

On seeing Trump’s post, I thought immediately of Mark Jacob’s October piece about how the media is missing the biggest story there is — Trump’s apparent mental illness. Jacob, a former Chicago Tribune editor, wrote: “It keeps getting worse, and the mainstream media keep making the same mistakes in their coverage of the King of Crazytown.” After Trump claimed he “predicted” 9/11, Jacob wrote on Bluesky that “the media need to be writing about his mental unfitness every day until we get rid of him and save our country.” But of course, that didn’t happen then, and it didn’t happen this time.

And now, with this horrible Easter morning development, we’ve entered new territory.

But let’s get real. If traditional techniques and language (“emphatic threats”) aren’t getting it done, what actually would work? I’ll make three suggestions, and would be happy to hear yours.

First, show the primary document — yes, publish an image of the actual social-media post — even if that means breaking with the tradition of standards and practices. People should see it in its raw, undiluted form. After all, not everyone is on X, or Truth Social, or Bluesky, where they would have encountered it themselves.

Second, use headline language and story placement to get across how truly radical Trump’s behavior is. I thought that the Guardian US did a good job with that in a story (not its main news article but a prominently placed sidebar) that carried this headline: ‘Unhinged madman’: US politicians react to Trump’s expletive-laden threat to Iran.” The Guardian used Trump’s full language in the second paragraph and quoted former Congresswoman and former Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene urging her follow Republicans: “I know all of you and him and he has gone insane, and all of you are complicit.” It also quoted independent senator Bernie Sanders: “These are the ravings of a dangerous and mentally unbalanced individual.” (Disclosure: I write regularly for the Guardian US.) The Times had a somewhat similar story, the lead paragraph of which described a message “stunning for its crude combativeness and profanity.” That bluntness was appropriate.

Third, break with tradition and put a strong opinion column or editorial — or even a very direct news analysis piece — at the top of the online home page, or on the print front page. Label it as opinion or editorial, but put it out there. Front-page editorials are not unheard of, though rare. Such a decision would speak volumes and break through the tendency to normalize. These are not normal times. No deadly lightning would strike any newsroom decision-maker if an editorial appeared on the front page. It’s happened before, as this Poynter piece makes clear.

Even a prominent teaser to an inside editorial — as the Newark Star-Ledger did in 2016 when it urged scandal-ridden New Jersey governor Chris Christie to resign — would make a strong statement.

And for regular citizens: Include sources of news and opinion outside the mainstream. By Sunday evening, one of my favorite writers, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, had posted a short piece, titled “He’s Seriously Out of His Mind….And the Iranians Know It.” It was a welcome blast of reality and honesty. And back to historian Garrett Graff, whose newsletter is called Doomsday Scenario. He wrote: “Trump’s ‘leadership’ is indistinguishable from your crazy uncle yelling at the TV.”

I don’t expect to see that kind of candor on the front page of USA Today or the home page of CNN, nor am I urging that.

But surely we can do better than settling for descriptions like “expletive-laced.” In fact, we must.

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Readers, I hope that somehow, despite all of this, you had a happy Easter or Passover, if you observe these religious holidays. As a mostly practicing, semi-struggling Catholic, I attended Easter Mass at a Jesuit parish in New York City. I arrived on time to find that the crowd had overflowed the nave, extended in the hundreds into the vestibule and even down the front stairs almost into the Chelsea street. And this wasn’t even at the popular church in Greenwich Village that was recently described as the “hottest club in town,” and was the subject of an entertaining Washington Post story. Enjoy the gift link here.

Divine intervention doesn’t seem like a bad idea right now, but certainly not the violent, hateful kind that Pete Hegseth has urged, only to be rebuked by Pope Leo.

Please let me know how you are reacting to the latest news developments and tell me where you saw the best (or worst) coverage. Tell me what kind of changes you’d like to see in media coverage of Trump in the future.

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My background: I am a Lackawanna, NY native who started my career as a summer intern at the Buffalo News, my hometown daily. After years as a reporter and editor, I was named the paper’s first woman editor in chief in 1999, and ran the 200-person newsroom for almost 13 years. Starting in 2012, I served as the first woman “public editor” of the New York Times — an internal media critic and reader representative — and later was the media columnist for the Washington Post. These days, I write here on Substack, as well as for the Guardian US. I’ve also written two books, taught journalism ethics, and won a few awards, including three for defending First Amendment principles.

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As mentioned above, Times assistant managing editor Patrick Healy’s description, in a Tuesday morning email exchange, of the deliberations at the Times about using Trump’s full language:

We used the full language in 4 different online stories on Sunday as well as twice in the Live blog; in two stories in print on Monday, including one on A1 (Erika Solomon’s Assess); and in one A1 story in print today - the fifth paragraph of David Sanger’s A1 story leading the paper.

President Trump posted his “Fuckin’ Strait” message at 8:03am ET Sunday. Our News Desk and Standards editors began discussing the profanity while we got a first cut into our Live coverage reporting the news of his threat quickly and describing Trump’s “expletive-laden” post. As you know, we have strong standards and Stylebook guidance regarding profanity; publishing it involves discussion and, in many cases, input from a masthead editor. I joined a Slack discussion and concurred with the News Desk/Standards recommendation to use the full “Fuckin’ Strait” message in Live coverage and publish a screenshot of Trump’s post as well. (We keep profanity out of headlines and subheds and that was my guidance here as well.) The full quote was in our Live coverage by 10:30 am -- probably earlier. By lunchtime the full quote appeared twice in the Live blog (once to report the news and again to provide context) as well as in David Sanger’s online piece. By late afternoon the full quote was in three other online stories as well: Erika Solomon’s News Analysis, Tim Balk’s politics story and Ed Wong’s war crime story. In each case, the quote was newsworthy and relevant to the story, and provided context to readers who might only see one story (and not the other five).

In Monday’s print newspaper, the full quote appeared on A1 in Erika’s News Analysis and inside the paper with a piece by Sanger and others on the Truth Social post. The full quote did not appear in Ed Wong’s A1 story about war crimes; instead, the profanity was described. I believed using profanity once on A1 Monday was appropriate. Describing it in Ed’s A1 piece wasn’t sanewashing -- the piece was about war crimes, after all -- but rather a judicious decision not to have two instances of “fuckin’” on the front page when one instance would suffice.

In Tuesday’s print newspaper, the full quote appeared on A1 in David Sanger’s News Analysis.

Outside pressure was not a factor in our deliberations; everyone was aligned on publishing the full quote pretty quickly, especially for Easter Sunday morning.