Is media coverage of Trump’s indictment over the top or just right?

Today’s the big day, eh?

Donald Trump becomes the first president, former or otherwise, to be arrested. He will be arraigned in Manhattan today on upward of 30 counts stemming from hush money payments made to an adult film star before the 2016 presidential election. After that, Trump is expected to head back to his place in Florida and make a speech.

So what about the media coverage?

Here’s an interesting place to start. Trump’s team asked the judge in the case to bar cameras from the courtroom because it “will create a circus-like atmosphere … raises unique security concerns and is inconsistent with Trump’s presumption of innocence.”

Wait, he’s worried about creating a circus-like atmosphere? It’s too late for that. Did you see Monday’s cable news coverage? The networks followed Trump’s every move from Mar-a-Lago to New York, including shots of his motorcade going to the airport. It started to look like the overhead shots of O.J. in the white Bronco. (Check out this tweet.) The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi pointed out that “O.J. Simpson” briefly trended on Twitter on Monday.

It got so ridiculous that Trump’s son, Eric, actually put out a funny tweet: “Watching the plane … from the plane.” It was a photo of him inside the plane with the TV inside the plane showing the plane on the runway. Get all that?

Media journalist Brian Stelter tweeted, “This picture is a thousand-word media critique.”

Journalist Aaron Rupar tweeted a photo of Trump’s plane on the runway and made up a fake quote from a fake media person saying, “We’re getting reports that they were just asked to fasten their seatbelts and put away electronic devices. Peanuts and cookies will be served when they reach a cruising altitude. Trump asked for a window seat.”

Actually, I’m only pretty sure that Rupar made up that quote.

That was just the taking off part of Trump’s trip. Then came the landing, which was covered just as intently.

My favorite headline Monday was this one on a story from Mediaite’s Ken Meyer: “Fox Host Complains Americans Are Obsessing Over Trump Indictment During Hour-Long Show on Trump Indictment.” Sounds like an Onion story, doesn’t it?

Today’s coverage figures to be even more breathless.

There will certainly be important aspects, from Trump’s arraignment to possible protests.

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, who knows Trump better than anyone in the media, and her colleague Jonathan Swan had an excellent set–up piece Monday: “A Presidential Candidate and a City Brace for a Consequential Week.”

First, they opened with a splendid line that Trump is walking into the courtroom “as both a defendant and a candidate.”

They added, “The next few days could be critical for Mr. Trump, and advisers have warned him that he could easily damage his own case, according to a person involved in the discussions who requested anonymity because the talks were private. He wrote an especially incendiary post on his social media site, Truth Social, that featured a news article with a photo of (Manhattan District Attorney Alvin) Bragg on one side and Mr. Trump holding a baseball bat on the other. It was eventually taken down, after pleading by advisers. And he has already attacked the judge — comments his lawyers tried to smooth over in appearances on the morning talk shows on Sunday.”

Trump might already be trying to spin today into something useful for himself. Rolling Stone’s Jana Winter reported Trump was given the option to be arraigned over Zoom but opted for a high-profile, midday booking in Manhattan.

A circus, indeed.

Trump’s speech

What will TV networks do with Trump’s speech planned for tonight?

It might be newsworthy, considering they likely will be the first remarks made following the first presidential arrest in history. Then again, do networks merely turn on their cameras and microphones to let an unfiltered Trump say whatever he wants?

The guess is some networks, such as Fox News and maybe even CNN, will air the speech live. Others likely will do the more prudent thing: monitor the speech and then report on whatever is newsworthy.

What’s really newsworthy?

The networks will be all over every aspect of today’s events, but the coverage I find the most beneficial focuses on what happens next and what it all means.

Today, for the first time, we’ll learn exactly what the charges are. That will allow journalists to actually dig into the facts as opposed to filling time speculating (although there likely will still be a lot of that, too).

For example, this is an informative piece from The Washington Post’s Nick Mourtoupalas, Lauren Tierney and Julie Vitkovskaya: “The steps of the Trump indictment process, explained.”

In the end, today is a very big deal. But the coverage needs to be responsible and fact-based, not over-the-top and overly political just for the sake of stirring up outrage and views/clicks.

‘60 Minutes’ leftovers

A few more thoughts from Sunday night’s “60 Minutes” profile of Republican Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. I wrote about Lesley Stahl’s interview with Greene on Monday with questions about how the story was handled.

My conclusion: Yes, Greene has enough influence and power that “60 Minutes” should profile her. No, “60 Minutes” didn’t push back hard enough on some of Greene’s claims and the profile fell short.

There was plenty of outrage about “60 Minutes” doing a story on Greene even before it aired. The outrage continued after the segment aired.

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols tweeted, “Stahl interviewed Greene as if she were just another (somewhat) unusual member of Congress with some out-there ideas. Showed MTG some of her worst stuff, and MTG just waved it away, and Stahl let it all slide.”

Former CNN White House correspondent John Harwood tweeted, “I respect Lesley Stahl and 60 Minutes but airing this is garbage.”

MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan tweeted, “I have been on a month-long book tour, pushing the importance of tougher interviews & need for follow-up Qs. I had a piece in The Atlantic on how to deal with Gish Galloping by bad faith interviewees. And then … Leslie Stahl goes & does *that* interview with MTG. Kill. Me. Now.”

How could it all have gone better, aside from more pushback on some of Greene’s past outlandish comments?

For starters, the piece could have been more insightful. While Greene is a newsworthy person, there was nothing in the piece that was new. I think I speak for most when I say that I didn’t learn anything that I didn’t already know about Greene.

Stahl did ask a little about Greene’s economic ideas, but I also would have liked to have learned more about what Greene hopes to accomplish as a lawmaker. Aside from owning the libs and making life difficult for Democrats, what does she really hope to accomplish in Congress?

It also would have been nice to get more voices into the story aside from Greene’s.

In the end, the piece was just under 14 minutes, which really isn’t that long. That length makes it hard for extended pushback, nuance and other voices. If more time couldn’t be given to the topic then perhaps the profile could have been shelved for now. Not because Greene isn’t worth a story, but because it couldn’t be done the way it needed to be done.

One last thing: Stahl is an elite-level reporter, and this story doesn’t change that. I reached out to her in an email for comment but did not hear back.

Daily Beast senior columnist Matt Lewis wrote, “What you saw was an interviewer who was likely air-dropped into a segment that was prepared and staged by a crack production team, using an antiquated style of semi-confrontational interviewing that’s ineffective on a politician as oft-removed from reality as Greene.”

Missing the story

This year’s women’s Final Four — the NCAA basketball championship held last weekend — should’ve gone down as one of the most memorable in history. Iowa, led by sensational superstar Caitlin Clark, upset undefeated and heavily-favored South Carolina in the semifinals to set up a championship showdown against LSU and their polarizing coach Kim Mulkey. After setting record TV numbers for the semifinals, the women had a good shot at setting a record for the most-watched women’s college basketball game ever.

And in fact, they did. The Sunday afternoon championship game on ABC/ESPN drew an average of 9.9 million viewers, making it the most-watched women’s college basketball game ever. It peaked at 12.6 million viewers.

But two stories tried to derail the weekend’s good vibes. First, the officials ruined the championship game by calling foul after foul, including a head-scratching technical foul on Clark that limited her play for much of the second half.

But it’s what happened near the end of the game that blew up and seemed to overshadow LSU’s victory against Iowa. As the game was winding down and LSU’s victory was apparent, LSU’s Angel Reese followed Clark and made a gesture made famous by professional wrestler John Cena, as well as rapper Tony Yayo. It’s a wave of the hand in front of the face, which means, “You can’t see me.” Reese then pointed at her own ring finger, a signal for winning a championship ring.

Many went bonkers on social media, calling Reese things such as disrespectful, unclassy and unsportsmanlike. Some were quite vulgar in their outrage, including media types such as Keith Olbermann and Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy.

Quickly, however, almost as many pointed out that Clark made the same “you-can’t-see-me” gesture in the past and was praised for her ice-cold competitiveness.

That started a brouhaha on social media about a double standard. Clark, who is white, wasn’t criticized, while Reese, who is Black, was. That led to several stories and columns.

In the end, the argument for many seemed to be that if you’re going to criticize Reese then you have to criticize Clark. OK, fine. That’s not unfair.

But here’s a thought: How about criticizing neither? This isn’t some local YMCA league for kids. We’re not all going out for sno-cones after the game. This is big-time, elite-level, grown-up basketball, a game in which trash-talking has a long history. Two of the most gifted and revered basketball players of all time — Michael Jordan and Larry Bird — are known for their legendary trash talk and are celebrated for it. They are hardly alone in the annals of basketball history in talking smack.

Clark knows how to get under opponents’ skin and, by the way, while many were quick to step in on Clark’s behalf, you know the one person who didn’t take issue with Reese’s actions? Clark herself.

Yes, there’s a discussion to be had about how Reese was criticized in a way that Clark wasn’t, and the real reasons behind that double standard. ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith talked at length about it.

But here’s another double standard: Reese and Clark were both criticized in a way that men would not have been.

That’s what I see as the real shame in all this: A great women’s tournament where the spotlight shined brighter than ever before and the main topic of conversation was trash-talking? In a basketball game? Are you serious? Sunday is the day we decide to have a debate about trash talk in basketball?

Social media and even those in the media — I’m talking about those who don’t watch women’s basketball and couldn’t name three players if they tried — are outraged by something that the players themselves aren’t upset about. Why? Because they are basketball players. How about we treat them as such?

One follow-up. Olbermann apologized, sort of, for his original comments, saying, “I apologize for being uninformed last night about the backstory on this. I don't follow hoops, college or pro, men or women. I had no idea about Clark. Both were wrong.”

That says it all: He doesn’t even follow hoops.

Media tidbits

• The Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr with “Fox ‘brain room’ debunked 2020 claims. Jeanine Pirro still aired them.”
• The New York Times’ Ken Bensinger with “Right-Wing Media Splits From DeSantis on Press Protections.”
• For Politico, Steven Waldman, the co-founder of Report for America, with “There’s Already a Solution to the Crisis of Local News. Just Ask This Founding Father.”
• For Poynter, Kwaku Krobea Asante with “The laws were supposed to attack ‘fake news.’ Now they are jailing journalists.”

Hot type

• Have you seen the YouTube show “Hot Ones?” It’s a simple, but brilliant concept. Affable host Sean Evans feeds wings that get hotter and hotter to celebrity guests, who try to answer his smart questions while keeping their mouths from burning away. The New York Times’ Maya Salam writes about it in “‘Hot Ones’ Was a Slow Burn All Along.”
• Inverse’s Ralph Jones with “Inside the wild, true, hot mess that was 1993’s ‘Super Mario Bros.’”

More resources for journalists

• Time for a new job? Your future employer is looking for you on The Media Job Board — Powered by Poynter, Editor & Publisher and America’s Newspapers. Search now!
• Poynter’s Beat Academy (March-Oct.) (Webinar series) — Enroll now.
• Telling the Stories of Faith and the Faithful — Los Angeles, April 18 (Seminar) — Register by April 3.
• An Evening with Denis Phillips — May 12, at The Straz. Get tickets.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].