Journalists Need To Stop Taking Trump’s Bait
Can journalists resist the appeal of responding to Trump’s Tweets?
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On Saturday, the President Tweeted a famous scene from the film ‘Independence Day’ that had his face (and that of others associated with him) superimposed over actors’ faces. Despite the rising number of American COVID-19 deaths (90,000 as of writing), many journalists and pundits still found the tweet worthy of significant attention, with Fox News, USA Today and, The Hill all picking up on the story. One CNN journalist even took to Twitter to comment on the video being ‘doctored’, as if this wasn’t already immediately obvious.
The focus on the Tweet is part of a long-running media obsession with Trump’s Twitter feed — some of which is justifiable given how the platform has become Trump’s de facto method of communication. However, this latest incident represents just one of many times that the media has prioritised covering the President’s Twitter feed over obviously more important matters. In early November, CNN’s Brian Stelter devoted an entire segment of his show to Trump’s Twitter typo’s and, on the same day, the New York Times’s online homepage led with three stories about the President’s use of the popular social media site.
For all of Trump’s political ineptitude, it seems as though he is all too aware of his ability to manipulate the press via Twitter
This focus on Trump’s social media habits could give the impression that there was nothing of great importance happening in the news at the time. However, just days before CNN’s typo’s segment and the New York Times’s 3 Twitter-focused pieces, the House of Representatives had formally approved an impeachment inquiry and Beto O’Rourke had ended his Presidential bid. Meanwhile, as Stelter was detailing how Trump had misspelt ‘smoking’ as ‘smocking’, California was continuing to reel from a mass shooting that had occurred days earlier; with a fifth causality being confirmed just two days before the segment.
None of this is to say that Trump’s behaviour on Twitter should be accepted from any President of the United States—for good reason, it’s hard to imagine Barack Obama ever tweeting inflammatory memes or calling his opponents ‘sad!’ and ‘crazy’. However, of all the bad things Trump has said and done, sharing infantile memes and obviously superimposed videos is pretty low on the list. Ultimately, people can only focus on so many news stories at once and — whether journalists like it or not — the opportunity cost of focusing on Tweets like Trump’s ‘Independence Day’ one is that people tune out of the other top stories of the day — which, in this case, is the rising number of Coronavirus deaths.
With the frequency at which Trump Tweets, the media cannot totally ignore the 280-character rants coming from the Oval Office, but ultimately, only a relatively small segment of the President’s Twitter feed is worthy of significant coverage. When the President announces a transgender military ban via social media, that is worthy of criticism from the media. When he Tweets, in a bout of racism, that congresswomen of color should go back to where they came from, that is worthy of criticism from the media. However, when Trump spells ‘wiretap’ with two p’s, that is not deserving of round the clock coverage. Moreover, when Trump Tweets a photoshopped image of a dog with a medal, we don’t need a 600 page write-up on it, that somehow requires two different writers and a third researcher (looking at you, New York Times).
The opportunity cost of focusing on Tweets like Trump’s ‘Independence Day’ one is that people tune out the other top stories of the day
Tweets like these from the President deserve less attention, not just because they’re mostly unimportant, but because they play directly into Trump’s hands. All the serious, hard-hitting journalism done by the likes of the New York Times, MSNBC and CNN is undermined when they act as though ‘covfefe’ is deserving of being a lead story. This sort of journalistic ineptitude does more to worsen trust in mainstream media than anything Trump could say or do, and the ultimate impact is that when the media exposes genuinely bad things that Trump has done, less and less people are willing to listen.
Moreover, for all of Trump’s political ineptitude, it seems as though he is all too aware of his ability to manipulate the press via Twitter. He knows that when he makes a spelling mistake, Tweets out a meme or says something provocative, the media will divert their attention away from the important matters at hand. During a deadly — and woefully mismanaged — pandemic, having that power will be more important for Trump than ever, and it’s more important than ever that the media resists taking Trump’s bait.
