There's a lot of depressing news. Here's a pick-me-up (or three)
Plus: the question people keep asking me, one that I don't know how to answer
Early in Donald Trump’s rise to power, there was a lot of discussion about whether major news outlets should call his many falsehoods and misstatements “lies.”
The argument against it went something like this: A lie is intentional and since it’s impossible to know what’s in someone else’s mind, we shouldn’t use that word. We can’t know what’s in Trump’s mind so we can’t say he lied.
At some point, journalists got over this caution and started being more forthright. And now, judging by the front page and the home page of the New York Times on Sunday, they have completely crossed the bridge to Obvious Town.
“Key to Trump’s Success: Knack for Habitual Lying” read the print headline. Online, it was “In Trump’s Alternate Reality, Lies and Distortions Drive Change.” Here’s a gift version of the article.
Chief White House correspondent Peter Baker starts with four examples from recent days: “The United States sent $50 million in condoms to Hamas. Diversity programs caused a plane crash. China controls the Panama Canal. Ukraine started the war with Russia.”
Lies, lies, lies — and shouted from the rooftops in the news organization that wields a lot of influence all over the world.
A reader comment on the story makes it clear why this clarity is important. Bruce Rozenblit of Kansas City, Missouri wrote: “This analysis has completely changed my thinking on Trump. I have long thought that Trump was a victim of his psychological maladies, that his narcissism was warping his worldview. Now I see that all he does, no matter how outrageous, is part of a calculated and orchestrated strategy.”
Maybe if the media had been this direct about Trump a decade ago, American democracy wouldn’t have backslid as rapidly as it has. Yet, even now, it’s good to see.
Consider, too, the clear language of deputy opinion editor Patrick Healy in the widely circulated Times newsletter The Morning on Saturday. Healy wrote: “Trump smeared the founding fathers in Week 5 by declaring himself ‘king’ — of the United States? The world? His narcissism knows no bounds — as he grasped for godlike power to pronounce congestion pricing ‘dead’ in America. (This) denigrates every American who has fought and died for democracy, but Trump sees those heroes as ‘losers’ anyway. Of course, he doesn’t have a king’s power but his efforts to remake America pay no heed to the rule of law.”
Does this kind of opinion and reporting even matter at this late stage? I think it does — a lot.
It contributes to why there was bad news for Trump this week from his own pollster. In swing House districts, Democrats lead by 5 points and voters want tax policy to prioritize working people, according to Politico. The ugly truth is getting through about what Trump and his power-happy sidekick Elon Musk are doing to regular citizens. Greg Sargent of the New Republic wrote about it here.
Thanks to so many of you who alerted me to how these Trump and Musk’s actions are affecting your local communities, and for telling me how you know about all of this. I’m not suggesting — not at all — that the Times was the source of all this information; but I do think that the language and tone there affect the entire media food ecosystem, perhaps making it more acceptable for smaller outlets to stop pulling their punches.
A second piece of encouraging media news is the extraordinary growth of a progressive, anti-Trump podcast called the MeidasTouch — which last week dethroned the Joe Rogan Experience as the No. 1 podcast in the U.S. It grew by more than 100 percent in reach last month, according to the Daily Beast, with 56 million downloads and views. The Meiselas brothers also have a successful Substack where they crowed last week in a post headlined “Murdoch Attacks Meiselas Bros…IT’S ON!!”
For those who are constantly asking why the left doesn’t build the equivalent of the grievance-driven media ecosystem on the right that includes Fox News, this development suggests some sort of movement in that direction. It’s worth watching.
And finally, a few notes from my trip to Georgia late last week where I had the privilege of speaking to a group of several hundred lawyers, judges and journalists gathered in Atlanta for an annual conference organized by the Georgia First Amendment Foundation, which advocates for transparent government and free speech, and by the Georgia Bar.
While there, I was heartened to learn some details about an important investigation that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has done into Georgia’s corrupt and violent prison system, and to hear that the paper has eight investigative reporters — a rarity at a time when regional newspapers are withering. The investigation has taken more than a year and it’s exactly the kind of public-spirited accountability journalism we need more of. Kudos to the AJC. (No surprise that the paper is still owned by the Cox family, not a predatory chain or a private-equity scavenger.)
I also met the editor of the Savannah-based nonprofit news site known as The Current, whose background includes the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and who came home to Georgia to create this startup. They have 10 reporters, Margaret Coker told me, and are in hiring mode. More of this, please.
Of course, local journalism remains in deep trouble. More than two newspapers a week are going out of business, according to Northwestern University Medill School research. They are mostly weeklies, often in small towns or rural areas where the new breed of digital news outlet isn’t thriving. “News deserts” — where there is little or no local news — are on the rise, and are a major reason for America’s democratic backsliding.
But as with the New York Times’s clearer language, and the growth of the Meidas network, I’ll take the positive developments where I can find them.
Two other brief notes from the conference. One — and I’ll ask readers here to help with this — is something I’m asked all the time and was asked there during the audience question portion. How can the reality-based press, as I call it, get through to the millions and millions of Americans all too willing to believe Trump’s lies, whether about the validity of the 2020 election or the war in Ukraine? How to bridge this divide? Is it the responsibility of the media to do this, or is it the role of education? Or something else? Please let me know what you think and give me your ideas in the comments.
Finally, I’m still smiling to myself about an attorney of significant vintage who approached me after my keynote talk to address me in his Georgia drawl. “I appreciate y’all coming down to Atlanta,” he said, “even though I disagree with pretty much everything you said.” I assured him it was my pleasure to be there. Which was not a lie.
No doubt he would have disagreed with my column in the Guardian US last week in which I wrote about the “Gulf of America” controversy and how Trump is punishing the Associated Press for continuing to call the international body of water the Gulf of Mexico on first reference. Since that column published, the AP filed suit as the Trump administration continued to block them from press events.
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“How can the reality-based press, as I call it, get through to the millions and millions of Americans all too willing to believe Trump’s lies?”
I think newspapers need to do two things: Publish stories on the front page every day reporting on the impacts of what’s happening on their communities. And not treating the lies as opinions. The second is publishing editorial opinions on the state of democracy on the front page. Not every day, but frequently enough.
The failure of the corporate media to call his lies what they were is a major reason we're in this situation. They spent years pussyfooting around playing the both sides game and now the NYT is locking the barn after the horses ass is out of the barn and living in the Whote House. That is precisely why I dropped my subscription to them and WaPo and only support The Guardian.
Margaret, thank you for the shout out to The Meidas Touch and the Current. I live in SE Georgia and subscribe to the Current and their excellent work. And I've recommended The Meidas Touch to dozens of people. Their daily political report by Ron Filipkowski is the best anywhere.