Press Watch

2 weeks ago | presswatchers.org | Dan Froomkin

As anti-ICE and anti-Trump protests are becoming increasingly frequent and newsworthy, our major news organizations need to rethink how to cover them. Right now, the emphasis in news reports is almost exclusively on how many people were arrested, and whether any of the protesters were violent. Even crowd estimates are oddly verboten. See, for instance, this Washington Post report on Wednesday’s protests around the nation, which focuses almost exclusively on arrests and what the police said.

2 weeks ago | presswatchers.org | Dan Froomkin

The mainstream media has become a key partner in Donald Trump’s quest to cast the small-scale rioting in Los Angeles as an existential threat to the country. This is happening in two ways. The media is focusing on the visually dramatic rioting and property damage rather than the overwhelmingly peaceful expressions of support for friends and neighbors and a widespread backlash against over-militarized and cruel immigration raids.

1 month ago | presswatchers.org | Dan Froomkin

Donald Trump’s racism and derangement were on full display during his Oval Office meeting on Wednesday with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. And while news headlines fell well short of proclaiming the lunacy and hatefulness of his remarks, reporters at our top media outlets at least came closer than they have before to openly addressing Trump’s vehemently racist views.

1 month ago | presswatchers.org | Dan Froomkin

Donald Trump has no coherent plan, other than self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment. He is making this stuff up as he goes along. He is impulsive and changes his mind constantly. He lies pathologically and is often incoherent. He promotes actions that are overtly illegal. He is hostile to every form of expertise. Others, most notably Elon Musk and Stephen Miller, are making decisions in his name that he doesn’t seem to know or care about.

1 month ago | presswatchers.org | Dan Froomkin

News organizations, along with good-government groups and other interested parties, are doing a commendable job of chronicling the damage the Trump regime is doing to the government, the country, and the world. But none of them, individually, is in a position to give the public the full picture. It’s just too much. This is a feature of Trump’s strategy of “flooding the zone.” No one entity can possibly keep up. And as we go forward, how can any one organization keep tabs on all the fallout?