Friend,

For far too long media execs have played along with Trump’s strongman charade, aware that his tele-presence is a boon for ratings and revenues. Now, U.S. democracy is reaping what they have sown.

At a speech delivered on Veterans Day, Donald Trump used rhetoric nearly identical to that used by Adolf Hitler.¹ Rather than honoring veterans as one might expect, Trump labeled his adversaries “vermin” — promising that, if elected, he would use his power to “root out” anyone he sees as against him.

To state the obvious: Parroting Hitler should not be considered normal behavior … ever. But the media have grown used to covering Trump’s extremism as if it’s standard political fare.²

For decades, the former president has capitalized on the media’s obsessive attention to paint an alternative vision of himself — one in which he features as a powerful and decisive figure instead of a twice-impeached, criminally indicted sexual abuser who sought to overthrow a democratic election that he lost.

A growing number of journalists is finally being explicit in using “fascist” to describe Trump’s beliefs — and “dictatorship” to describe his vision of a violently reshaped United States should he win a second term.

This is a start, but it’s still too little and almost too late. To protect democracy, the media need to report more on the rise of fascism in America — and they also need to reflect on their efforts to enable it.

Years ago, media execs eagerly hitched their wagons to the Trump Show to boost their ratings. As they themselves admit, as long as Trump’s preening cruelty makes them richer, there’s no need to worry about the consequences. Some examples:

• Then-CBS CEO Les Moonves said in 2016 that devoting so much airtime to then-candidate Trump "may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS."³
• Former media exec Jeff Zucker has done more than anyone to build the modern myth of Donald Trump:⁴ While at NBC, Zucker created The Apprentice, which rebranded Trump from a bankruptcy-spawning loser to an alleged boardroom genius. Zucker later moved to CNN and again focused the cameras on his favorite media monster to ride that same ratings boost.
• Head of German media giant Axel Springer Mathias Döpfner sent a message on Election Day in 2020 and asked his fellow execs to “ … pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America.”⁵

The news business is about putting on a show that will draw the largest numbers of viewers, and Trump — like Hitler and Mussolini before him — is a camera-ready showman. Never mind that, if elected to another term, he’d likely use his power to once more undermine media freedom and silence dissenting voices.

Our commercial media system does not hesitate to showcase fascist demagogues for profit, and our democracy pays the price. There must be a deep reckoning that shifts the ways large outlets report on Trump and acknowledges the commercial incentives that led to this dangerous moment.

With a presidential-election year just on the other side of the holidays, the danger of a Trump-coddling media couldn’t be greater: Free Press will always demand that the media hold the powerful accountable, but we need your help to sustain this work.

Thank you,

Tim and the rest of the Free Press team
freepress.net

1. “How Trump’s Rhetoric Compares with Hitler’s,” The Washington Post, Nov. 13, 2023

2. “The News Media Isn’t Biased Against Trump. It’s Biased For Him,” Intelligencer, Oct. 6, 2020

3. “Leslie Moonves on Donald Trump: ‘It May Not Be Good for America, but It’s Damn Good for CBS’,” The Hollywood Reporter, Feb. 29, 2016

4. “Jeff Zucker’s Legacy is Defined by His Promotion of Donald Trump,” The Washington Post, Feb. 3, 2020

5. “Politico’s New German Owner Has a ‘Contrarian’ Plan for American Media,” The Washington Post, Jun. 6, 2022