It’s time for President Trump to talk to a network other than Fox News
President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable with governors on the reopening of America's small businesses, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Thursday, June 18, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump did an interview with The Wall Street Journal this week and, unprompted, talked about his now-infamous slow walk down the ramp after his West Point commencement speech. He said the ramp was “long and steep and slippery” and he wanted to be cautious because he was wearing shoes with leather soles.
Interesting, but here’s his comment that I found to be especially notable:
“I made Juneteenth very famous. It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it.”
I’m pretty sure people heard of Juneteenth before Trump.
This brings up a thought about Trump and interviews. Will he ever sit down for an extensive interview with one of the major networks again?
The Wall Street Journal, while occasionally leaning somewhat conservative, is most certainly a legitimate and respectable news outlet. So it’s good to see Trump doing an interview with it. But he also did an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday.
Hannity is not a legitimate and respectable news source. He’s a pundit. He’s a supporter of the president. At times, he is even an adviser to the president. We should all know what we’re getting into when Hannity interviews Trump.
CNN’s Chris Cillizza laid out “The 37 Most Shocking Lines from Donald Trump’s ‘Interview’ with Sean Hannity.” (Notice how Cillizza put “interview” in quote marks.) Among some of Trump’s lines:
He referred to coronavirus as the “Chinese plague.” He said police are “under siege.” He said Joe Biden will abolish the police, even though Biden is on the record as saying he is against defunding the police. He said Democrats want to get rid of the Second Amendment.
About the police shooting death of Rayshard Brooks, Trump said, “I thought it was a terrible situation, but you can't resist a police officer. And if you have a disagreement, you have to take it up after the fact. It was a very sad, very, very sad thing.” And he said coronavirus was “fading away.”
On and on he went, pretty much unchecked by Hannity. Again, that’s not a surprise. If you hold Hannity to the same standard that you’re going to hold ABC’s David Muir or NBC’s Lester Holt, for example, you’re being foolish.
Trump also did an interview recently with Fox News’ Harris Faulkner, who did better than Hannity at asking decent questions.
Still, it would be a welcome sight to see the president sit down with someone from one of the major networks for an extensive interview. He was interviewed by ABC “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir on May 5. But that was well before the death of George Floyd and the protests and all that has happened in the past seven weeks regarding the coronavirus. It was also very short.
Rallies and interviews with Fox News are not enough at this time, but that’s where you’re most likely to see Trump. CBS News’ White House correspondent Mark Knoller added up Trump’s interviews since he became president, and by his count, Trump has done 19 interviews with Hannity and 86 with Fox News. He has done eight with NBC/CNBC, six with ABC and five with CBS. He has done none with CNN.
A long interview — say, an hour — with ABC’s Robin Roberts or CBS’s Gayle King to have a conversation (not unchecked rambling) about race, the coronavirus and the economy is just what Americans need to understand fully what the president of the United States is thinking during one of the most important moments in the history of this country.
First the Post ...
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan sent out a memo to staff on Thursday to talk about the Post’s desire to build a stronger culture of diversity and equality. Most notably, Ryan announced the Post will add more than a dozen positions to the newsroom. (Check out this tweet from New York Times media columnist Ben Smith for the full memo.)
The new hires will include a managing editor for diversity and inclusion. This position will sit in on story meetings, as well as review the Post’s coverage on sensitive topics, including race.
The other additions include an “America desk editor,” who will direct race coverage; a “Race in America” writer; a writer on America and multiculturalism; an additional writer for the “About Us” newsletter; a national security writer; a criminal justice writer; an additional writer for the Style section who will cover cultural manifestations of an America that is changing demographically; a climate and environmental writer; and a health and science writer.
All of these additions will strongly consider and include race in their work. The Post also wants to add a photojournalist with “experience in coverage of race and identity.”
The Post will also make additions to human resources, including the hiring of a diversity and inclusion director. It also will launch “unconscious bias training,” which will be required for all editors and managers.
And then the Times …
The New York Times also sent out a memo to staff from publisher A.G. Sulzberger, executive editor Dean Baquet, CEO Mark Thompson and chief operating officer Meredith Kopit Levien. The memo, which you can read in this Ben Smith tweet, was an update on plans to make the Times a more “diverse, equitable and inclusive company.” The letter said that they have heard from employees of color who feel they are not sufficiently a part of the decision-making process at the Times. The Times then announced plans to begin working with those inside and outside the company to improve this situation.
|
