“Dear journalists: Stop taking Trump literally”
“Dear journalists: Stop taking Trump literally”
(CNN)Just before the dawn of the Trump administration, journalism in Washington, DC, faces an existential crisis — but virtually no one in the profession is willing to diagnose it.
Here it is: For the first time, words don’t matter.
In August, as a guest on MSNBC’s Meet the Press Daily, I noted that voters take Donald Trump seriously but not literally, while journalists take him literally, but not seriously.
The rubric got traction on social media, became the headline of a widely read piece for The Atlantic by savvy columnist Salena Zito, and has been oft-repeated by other commentators, including tech pioneer and Trump backer Peter Thiel in a much-watched National Press Club address.
Months later and on the far side of the election, the press is still taking Trump more literally and less seriously than voters do. The most recent case in point is the furor over his baseless claim on Twitter about voter fraud, that “millions of people who voted illegally” cost him the popular vote. It’s the latest instance of the media buying into Trump’s outrage-tweeting strategy.