The Media Can Build Back Trust by How It Covers Trump

Heading into the 2024 campaign, NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen exhorted political reporters to resist the lure of horse race coverage and shift their focus: “Not the odds, but the stakes.” It became a mantra (and scorecard) among critics hoping for substantive coverage of the choice that Harris v. Trump 2.0 presented— “Not who has what chances of winning,” Rosen said, “but the consequences for American democracy.”

The prospect of a new Trump Administration calls for the next injunction, as transition reports ricochet between outlandish cabinet picks, mass deportation plans, crushing tariff schedules, cronyism, and enemies’ lists. We know much more now about Trump’s techniques, his circus acts and misdirection, and the public will be better served in 2025 by a new filter: “Not the threats, but the facts.”

Future events are notions, not news, and once the sirens become incessant, they are easily ignored. Some voters found comfort in noting “Trump was President once and nothing terrible happened”; they could brush past the pandemic body count and coup attempt and $8 trillion in added debt because many pundits predicted even worse.

Read More: Where Trump 2.0 Might Look Very Different From Trump 1.0

With a second term looming, journalists can waste enormous energy crafting worst case scenarios. Trump’s campaign evoked images of shattered families and concentration camps, troops in the streets, public executions and an assault on global trade that could wreak havoc on the U.S. economy. The threats alone have rattled world markets, inspired migrants to enlist lawyers, and Pentagon officials to explore what happens if a President orders soldiers to break the law. His victory has apparently taken a toll on the mental health of some substantial number of people; the next day MSNBC was posting advice on “How to Cope With Election Results” while therapists recommended self-care, journaling, deep breathing and limited news consumption—advice which some seem to have taken to heart; CNN and MSNBC saw their ratings drop in half post-election.

By failing to prepare, Ben Franklin said, you are preparing to fail, so a certain amount of attention to novel risks is warranted, just as a certain amount of coverage of polls and candidates and campaign tactics is appropriate during a campaign. But the key is proportion. Energy spent on fears that never materialize is worse than wasted: it secretes cynicism, suspicion, and surrender. Threats are theater, action invites accountability. Reporters are not tasked with being drama critics; their constitutionally protected function, more important now than ever, is holding the powerful to account for what they actually do, not what they say they will do or have done.

Donald Trump has raised to an art form the ability to make extravagant promises and then claim to have kept them, as if saying makes it so. His famous promise to Build The Wall yielded about 450 miles, of which about 50 was entirely new vs. reinforcing existing barriers. Mexico did not pay for any of it and he deported fewer people than President Obama. But given the Biden Administration’s flaccid border policy, Trump carried 89% of voters who ranked immigration as their top concern.

It’s a perfect trap: he thrills his fans by promising that he alone can do the radical thing that will Make America Great Again; attacks his enemies for trying to stop him when they warn of dire consequences; and then declares victory for renewed American Greatness with no bad side effects, which likely didn’t materialize mainly because he didn’t actually do the radical thing in the first place. As long as he drives experts and “elites” nuts, he wins whether he follows through or not.

Were Trump to carry out promises to deport 10 or 15 million undocumented people, it would not just ravage families, destroy communities and by some estimates cost upwards of $200 billion; it would also gut industries from construction to hospitality to agriculture while raising labor costs for businesses everywhere. And that assumes there are countries willing to absorb all those we deport. So the more logical scenario would be for the Administration to conduct a sufficiently theatrical series of raids and deportations and declare victory.

Read More: Trump Is Banned From Separating Families at the Border Again. Will He Fight It?

Across the board tariffs would be similarly ruinous for industries that rely on global partners for supplies; so the threats of 25% tariffs on all goods from Canada and Mexico, our two biggest trading partners, would crush carmakers, increase energy costs and and raise food prices—a majority of our fresh fruit and 69% of vegetables come from Mexico, as did 15% of cars sold in the U.S. last year.

Constant amplification of threats fuels what Yale historian Timothy Snyder calls “anticipatory obedience,” the lubricant of authoritarianism. Attacks on non-partisan civil servants inspire submission; threats against newsrooms invite self-censorship. When the spotlight is trained on the truths and tweets and late-night rants, it creates the conditions for misdirection, Trump triumphant in the center ring while elsewhere a new administration quietly subverts democratic norms and erodes the rule of law.

“When we freak out prospectively about things Trump says he’s going to do, we help him in two ways. 1. We help him sell the idea that he’s actually doing it, thus building his credibility with his voters. 2. We help restrain him from actually doing the thing, thus insulating him from the consequences of his proposals," writes Jonathan Last, editor at the Bulwark. What's needed, he argues, is an approach that lets voters know, or feel directly, the real effects of Trump's policies: "In short, let people touch the stove.”

A focus on “not the threats, but the facts” would adjust press filters so that more attention is paid to what the new Administration actually does, specifically, at what scale, with what effects, rather than dwelling on threats, promises, guesstimates, and speculation. So if, at 11:59 pm before punishing tariffs are slated to go into effect, Trump declares that the border is sealed and drug smuggling ceased, Americans have the right to know if his threats worked. If he claims to have successfully deported two or ten million people, let’s check the accounting.

That reporting will take time, muscle, and discipline, especially in covering the intelligence and national security apparatus. But it will constitute a genuine public service—and might also help to rebuild trust in the media if less coverage involved prophecy and premonition. Given the aggressive cast of many of Trump’s cabinet choices, there will be plenty to cover in the present without presuming to know the future. And it may be that the greatest risks lie in the quiet corners and side deals and back channels both at home and abroad. Let’s shine the light where it’s needed most.