1/ I wrote in my latest essay: "Journalists are correct that if they become the political opposition to Trump, they will lose. And yet, they have to go to war against a political style in which power gets to write its own story." nybooks.com/daily/2018/04/… Many people have asked me—
... about that distinction. They want to know: What should journalists do in this situation if they cannot become the political opposition, and yet they have to push back against Trump turning journalists into hate objects and "flooding the zone with shit," as Bannon put it. 2/
First: Suspension of normal relations, as one does in diplomacy. Many things belong under this heading, starting with withdrawal from rituals like the @whca dinner that presume normalcy. It would be up to different news organizations to decide what to suspend, but begin there. 3/
Second. Those who have exited from the press system? (The one third I mentioned in my @nybooks essay.) Keep reporting on them, and trying to understand where they are coming from, so as to deepen our grasp of what led to this disaster. Click for more: pressthink.org/2016/12/prospe… 4/
Third: Optimize "normal" journalism for trust in the way I describe here: pressthink.org/2017/12/show-w… and again here: medium.com/de-corresponde… 5/
Fourth: Collaborate internationally with journalists in countries that are seeing the same events play out, so as to improve our understanding of how "the politics of press hating" operates in different settings with different political systems. 6/
Fifth: When the national press and the local press team up to deliver public service journalism and accountability reporting, that's fighting against the "fake news" canard without mentioning the term or its circulator-in-chief. More like this, please. nytimes.com/2018/02/24/ins… 7/
Sixth: News organizations could band together more often — with each other and civil society groups — to put heavy pressure on the platforms to do more to combat propaganda and disinformation here and around the world. 8/
Are these "solutions?" Nope. Each has its own defects; there are costs that might not be affordable. And there are stories to chase! I guess it depends on how serious you think the situation is. My view: bad enough to suspend normal relations, and take unprecedented actions. END
