In Trump Era, Uncompromising TV News Should Be the Norm, Not the Exception
Jim Rutenberg (NY Times)
"Too often television news, especially on cable, serves as a megaphone for politicians who use it to forward lies and propaganda while so effortlessly ignoring questions they’re supposedly there to answer.
But every now and then, there are those happy exceptions."
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"That was when the CNN anchor Jake Tapper began asking Vice President-elect Mike Pence about connections between the Trump transition team and Michael G. Flynn, the son of the incoming national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn.
The younger Mr. Flynn had recently used Twitter to legitimize the false story that the Clintons and their allies were running a child sex trafficking ring out of the Comet Ping Pong pizza parlor in Washington. He did so hours after a man stormed the place with an AR-15 assault rifle in search of the nonexistent sex ring. (A week later I still have to ask, did I really just write that sentence?)
That morning, Mr. Pence had said on the MSNBC show “Morning Joe” that the younger Mr. Flynn had “no involvement in the transition whatsoever,” and that was that.
But, it turned out, the younger Mr. Flynn was in fact aiding his father on the transition — at least until later that day, when President-elect Donald J. Trump put an end to it. And, CNN was reporting, the transition team had even sought to get Mr. Flynn’s son a security clearance, for access to sensitive information.
When Mr. Tapper asked Mr. Pence whether he was aware of the security clearance request, Mr. Pence dodged. “I’m aware in talking to General Flynn that his son was helping with scheduling,” he said.
“But you put in for security clearance for him,” Mr. Tapper said.
“He was helping his dad,” Mr. Pence said, “but that’s no longer the case.”
As such, it was an object lesson in what doing it right looks like. At the same time, it was all very basic, what reporters are supposed to do: Ask questions of people in power and insist on answers.
But it bounced around the internet as a shining example of stand-up journalism, because, unfortunately, such moments now seem so rare — especially in a year marked by Matt Lauer’s soft interview of Mr. Trump at NBC’s “Commander in Chief” forum in September, and CNN’s own lapses with hires like the Trump aide Corey Lewandowski."
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"Television news is going to have to do its part should Mr. Trump and his administration try to make policy based on false assertions, the same way he used them on the campaign trail. (And, yes, television will have to be just as vigilant should Mr. Trump’s opponents use falsehoods to fight him, too.)
The same holds for all of the news media, of course. But live television can be a safe harbor for falsehood and deflection."
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/11/business/media/rutenberg-donald-trump-tv-news-propaganda.html
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