Another good post, Dick. To which I'd add: Amidst Trump's relentless flood-the-zone behavior, there's an enduring need for media to supplement single-issue reporting with big-picture analyses that put the pieces together, continually conveying the new "whole" that is being created.
I also wish there were steady reminders that in most respects Trump is not fulfilling an electoral mandate. Yes, in two respects he somewhat is: He promised a massive crackdown and deportation of undocumented immigrants and he promised tariffs.
But I see many stories and opinion pieces that mistakenly build the narrative that overall he's doing what he promised. And that is wildly false. Notably, during the campaign he disowned Project 2025. And yet now OMB Director Russell Vought and DOGE are fulfilling everything that Trump disowned. This is the exact opposite of fulfilling a mandate. It is a betrayal of electoral claims.
And beyond duplicitously fulfilling the Project 2025 and Chief Justice Roberts agenda of dismantling the administrative state, there was no expectation going into the election that the administration’s means would involve extra-legal methods (i.e., dubious or clearly illegal executive orders and DOGE-bombing rather than the oh-so-passé process of legislative action). Nor was there an expectation that the Supreme Court would reliably after-the-fact legalize the administration’s illegal over-reaches.
Even on immigration, I don't think that many who voted for Trump anticipated they'd see their neighbors rounded up by masked unidentified thugs.
So I think that there need to be constant media reminders that no one actually voted for the destruction of the administrative state, much less its destruction via extra-legal methods or Trump’s violations of the emoluments clause and other corrupt self-dealing.
Needless to say, you've identified a grand and excruciating challenge and your list of focal points for news media is vital (concretizing the impacts of cuts etc). On that front the toughest issue is figuring out how to entice readers to spend the time to understand those systemic causes-and-effects. Will they read it...? And it's great you're recalling the resonance of Trump's "meme of the day" (or hour) strategy with the Reagan / Deaver media strategy (TV focused). For those eager for more, there's a short On The Media interview with Deaver here: https://www.wqxr.org/story/132309-michael-deaver/?tab=transcript.
BOB GARFIELD: You were regarded as a master of handling the press. You limited, or at least tried to limit, President Reagan's exposure to a series of photo opportunities for The Evening News. You didn't seem to care much what or how much was written about the President in the newspapers, or at least that's your reputation.
MIKE DEAVER: It's fair to say that I always believed that most people got all their information from television. And so television was the most important part of my job. Yes, the dailies, particularly The New York Times, Wall Street Post, Washington Post, so forth, were critical because whatever was above the fold was usually the top of the evening news story. So that was important. But I really felt myself more like a producer for television than anything else.
BOB GARFIELD: You could actually set the network's agenda for covering the President by engineering press events, couldn't you?
MIKE DEAVER: You could. One of the things that we did that made that easier was that we worked on a 60-90 day strategy, so that I knew pretty well for the next three or four weeks what the news story was going to be 80 percent of the time. But the people at CBS and NBC and NPR didn't know that.
BOB GARFIELD: And you knew which days you wanted to deflect attention from the true story of the day and which day you wanted to invite in attention.
Perfectly stated. It's sometimes difficult to make the causal thread between government policy and the local effects clear. When the next pandemic hits will people understand how the destruction of our response infrastructure matters? What will happen when inflation hits? My guess is that when the consequences arrive, the zone will be really flooded and the challenge even greater for journalists.
Another good post, Dick. To which I'd add: Amidst Trump's relentless flood-the-zone behavior, there's an enduring need for media to supplement single-issue reporting with big-picture analyses that put the pieces together, continually conveying the new "whole" that is being created.
I also wish there were steady reminders that in most respects Trump is not fulfilling an electoral mandate. Yes, in two respects he somewhat is: He promised a massive crackdown and deportation of undocumented immigrants and he promised tariffs.
But I see many stories and opinion pieces that mistakenly build the narrative that overall he's doing what he promised. And that is wildly false. Notably, during the campaign he disowned Project 2025. And yet now OMB Director Russell Vought and DOGE are fulfilling everything that Trump disowned. This is the exact opposite of fulfilling a mandate. It is a betrayal of electoral claims.
And beyond duplicitously fulfilling the Project 2025 and Chief Justice Roberts agenda of dismantling the administrative state, there was no expectation going into the election that the administration’s means would involve extra-legal methods (i.e., dubious or clearly illegal executive orders and DOGE-bombing rather than the oh-so-passé process of legislative action). Nor was there an expectation that the Supreme Court would reliably after-the-fact legalize the administration’s illegal over-reaches.
Even on immigration, I don't think that many who voted for Trump anticipated they'd see their neighbors rounded up by masked unidentified thugs.
So I think that there need to be constant media reminders that no one actually voted for the destruction of the administrative state, much less its destruction via extra-legal methods or Trump’s violations of the emoluments clause and other corrupt self-dealing.
Appreciating the guidance, which applies aptly to what hyper local news can do for the citizenry. Kristen Wainwright,Cambridge Day
Needless to say, you've identified a grand and excruciating challenge and your list of focal points for news media is vital (concretizing the impacts of cuts etc). On that front the toughest issue is figuring out how to entice readers to spend the time to understand those systemic causes-and-effects. Will they read it...? And it's great you're recalling the resonance of Trump's "meme of the day" (or hour) strategy with the Reagan / Deaver media strategy (TV focused). For those eager for more, there's a short On The Media interview with Deaver here: https://www.wqxr.org/story/132309-michael-deaver/?tab=transcript.
BOB GARFIELD: You were regarded as a master of handling the press. You limited, or at least tried to limit, President Reagan's exposure to a series of photo opportunities for The Evening News. You didn't seem to care much what or how much was written about the President in the newspapers, or at least that's your reputation.
MIKE DEAVER: It's fair to say that I always believed that most people got all their information from television. And so television was the most important part of my job. Yes, the dailies, particularly The New York Times, Wall Street Post, Washington Post, so forth, were critical because whatever was above the fold was usually the top of the evening news story. So that was important. But I really felt myself more like a producer for television than anything else.
BOB GARFIELD: You could actually set the network's agenda for covering the President by engineering press events, couldn't you?
MIKE DEAVER: You could. One of the things that we did that made that easier was that we worked on a 60-90 day strategy, so that I knew pretty well for the next three or four weeks what the news story was going to be 80 percent of the time. But the people at CBS and NBC and NPR didn't know that.
BOB GARFIELD: And you knew which days you wanted to deflect attention from the true story of the day and which day you wanted to invite in attention.
MIKE DEAVER: Of course.
Perfectly stated. It's sometimes difficult to make the causal thread between government policy and the local effects clear. When the next pandemic hits will people understand how the destruction of our response infrastructure matters? What will happen when inflation hits? My guess is that when the consequences arrive, the zone will be really flooded and the challenge even greater for journalists.
Appreciating the guidance, which applies aptly to what hyper local news can do for the citizenry. Kristen Wainwright,Cambridge Day