Members of the news media are increasingly working together as they try to turn up the heat on President Trump’s White House.
On Thursday, more than 100 newspapers around the country are set to publish editorials in a coordinated push back against Trump’s repeated complaints of “fake news” and his remark that many in the press are the “enemy of the people.”
The Boston Globe initiated the campaign, and contacted local and national papers around the country to get them to join the effort.
“We have some big newspapers, but the majority are from smaller markets, all enthusiastic about standing up to Trump’s assault on journalism,” Boston Globe’s deputy editorial page editor Marjorie Pritchard told CNN on Saturday.
But coordination within the press is going beyond the staging of op-eds. Liberal New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman suggested last week that the media should work together on a new way to cover Trump’s mega-rallies, where the president often ridicules reporters who are collectively covering the event, usually in an elevated pen so that cameras can get a clear shot.
“No question that the press should not allow itself to be props at Trump’s rallies, and that can be dealt with by using a single pool camera that feeds all the networks, or reporters just sitting among the rally attendees, not in a special pen,” wrote Friedman.
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank previously offered his colleagues in the media nearly the exact same advice.
In a column on Aug. 3, Milbank wrote, “Why are journalists allowing themselves to be sitting ducks [at the rallies]? We should reduce our presence to the Air Force One ‘pool’ — a small rotating group that shares its reporting with the rest of the media. Any other journalists who wish to cover these spectacles should attend as members of the public.”
Reporters in the national press have grappled with covering Trump since he shot to the top of the Republican primary polls in 2015. His popularity was enhanced in large part because of his willingness to confront reporters who he perceived as overtly hostile or unfair.
A year and six months into Trump’s first term, the semi-regular White House press briefings have remained contentious events in which journalists have complained that they’re being lied to or undermined by the administration. That has led to another form of coordination among reporters.
At one of the briefings in late July, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders attempted to move on from an NBC News reporter who had attempted to ask multiple follow-up-questions.
When Sanders called on a reporter for the Hill, that reporter offered his opportunity back to the NBC reporter.
The New York Times devoted a full story to the moment under a headline that read, “Reporters, Facing a Hostile White House, Try a New Tactic: Solidarity.”
“Perhaps the moments of stonewalling from Ms. Sanders — and a notable recent drop-off in the frequency of the briefings — had generated a minor revolt in the press,” the paper said.
Well-known Washington journalist Mike Allen of Axios suggested months ago that reporters should simply stop attending the briefings altogether.
“With all the legitimate gripes reporters have with this White House, perhaps the least worthy of your (or their) time and attention is the WWE-style smackdown over briefings,” he wrote in late June. “Every day, the White House hides or dodges. Every day, reporters protest and whine. Here’s an idea: Quit going.”
