President Trump is heading to Kenosha. What can we expect and how should the media cover it?
A woman watches as people speak at a rally for Jacob Blake on Saturday in Kenosha, Wisconsin. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
During his 70-minute speech Thursday night, President Donald Trump did not mention the name Jacob Blake — the Black man shot in the back seven times by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. But this week, Trump is planning to go to the town where Blake was shot, and where two other men were shot and killed — allegedly by a 17-year-old vigilante carrying a military-style semi-automatic rifle.
This figures to be the major media story of the week. In fact, it was already a major topic on Sunday.
During an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, told Dana Bash, “Oh, I think his visit has one purpose, and one purpose only. And that is to agitate things and to make things worse. What also happened in Portland, too, you saw a parade of Trump supporters actually actively shooting paintballs at peaceful protesters. And the president, in my opinion, encourages that. He actually retweeted the people firing paint guns. So, I think he only means to agitate things. He is campaigning. It is clear his campaign is all about law and order. It is a throwback to the past. And he’s going to do everything to disrupt law and order in this time period.”
Law and order is a theme the president has focused on. He has tweeted the phrase “Law & Order” time and time again in recent months, particularly since the protests following George Floyd’s killing by police in Minneapolis. In fact, Trump tweeted “LAW & ORDER!!!” first thing Sunday morning. He followed that later in the day with more tweets criticizing Democratic mayors for violence in their cities.
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was repeatedly asked by moderator Chuck Todd whether Trump would try to de-escalate tensions between his supporters and protesters. Meadows stuck with the theme. “The president is on the side of law enforcement and the rule of law and he’s been very consistent in that,” Meadows said.
Meadows also echoed the Trump theme of blaming Democrats, saying, “Most of Donald Trump’s America is peaceful. It is a Democrat-led city in Portland that we are talking about this morning that just yesterday denied help from the federal government.”
But, on “Fox News Sunday,” Joe Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, blamed Trump for the violence.
“He’s had every opportunity to speak as a leader to this nation, to speak to people who are in trouble but also people who are looking around and are afraid, who see chaos,” Bedingfield said. “He has encouraged his supporters to go out, to be aggressive.”
So will Trump lower the temperature this week in Kenosha? During a panel discussion on “Meet the Press,” NBC’s Hallie Jackson said she expects to see Trump continue this theme of “law and order” right up until the election.
“That is the framing you’re going to see when the president goes to Kenosha on Tuesday,” Jackson said. “The campaign, and administration officials that I’ve talked to, think that this is a positive for the president in the sense that they think it is effective to people who are feeling fearful to, frankly, the people in President Trump’s base. So (expect that) instead of going out and … trying to talk about building bridges to members of the Black community, who … have been a part of this institution of systemic racism. President Trump has not done that in the last three-and-a-half years. There’s no indication that’s going to change on Tuesday when he goes to Kenosha. Instead the framing is going to be about that thin blue line that you’ve heard him, the vice president and other members of the campaign talk about. And nobody is backing away from those
remarks.”
So how should the media cover this week’s events?
The headline on Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin’s latest column is “It’s Time to Challenge the Cockeyed Reaction to Violence.”
Rubin writes that Trump has leaned into notions that have stoked racial tensions: “This phenomenon — reveling in violence from racial divisions they stoke — is part of the white supremacist playbook, specifically the phenomenon known as ‘accelerationism.’”
She then adds, “Naturally then, the news media is holding Trump accountable for violence, insisting that he condemn police excesses and … no, that is not happening. Instead, they amplify Trump’s demand that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden do something about the violence.”
Media covering Trump’s visit to Kenosha obviously should report on what the president says and does while he is there. But they also need to recount what Trump has said and done up until now.
Tracking Kyle Rittenhouse
Speaking of the 17-year-old who has been charged with shooting and killing two men during protests in Kenosha, The New York Times has put together a must-read piece of work.
The Times’ Haley Willis, Muyi Xiao, Christiaan Triebert, Christoph Koettl, Stella Cooper, David Botti, John Ismay and Ainara Tiefenthäler deeply reported Rittenhouse’s movements that fateful night for their story: “Tracking the Suspect in the Fatal Kenosha Shootings.”
Great work.
New kid on the block
A new national primetime news show will hit the airwaves this week. “NewsNation” from Chicago TV superstation WGN America will debut Tuesday.
The news program will air nightly for three hours beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern, with its own team of anchors and reporters. But it also will rely heavily on journalists and reporting from the 114 local newsrooms across the country in the Nexstar television chain. “NewsNation” insists the broadcasts will not have a political leaning.
Executive vice president of WGN America Sean Compton has been quoted as saying that when the idea to start a national news broadcast was first thought of, “We called it Project Neutral because we’re so sick of the polarization of news.”
“NewsNation” hopes to compete with the big guys — CNN, Fox News and MSNBC — and it might be able to carve out a niche with a team of reporters literally all over the country.
“We have boots on the ground everywhere,” Compton told the Chicago Tribune’s Robert Channick. “This makes sense because we’re in Sioux Falls, and we’re in Los Angeles and Chicago. CNN doesn’t have people in Fort Wayne.”
Channick reported “NewsNation” will be heavy on weather — a smart move because weather is always a hit with viewers, and the network, again, can rely on local reporters wherever there are newsworthy weather stories. That and its nonpartisanship could give “NewsNation” a chance.
“I think we’ll draw a lot of viewers from the other cable news networks,” Compton told Channick. “Because people think they go there to get news now, and they’re really getting political talk programming. We’re just trying to report the facts.”
For more, check out this documentary on “NewsNation.”
The timetable for a vaccine
Dr. Scott Gottlieb in 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
So when might come the time when you can go to your local drugstore and get a vaccine for COVID-19? President Trump said during his speech at the Republican National Convention that we would have a vaccine by the end of the year. In an interview with the Financial Times, current Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn suggested he might fast-track approval of the vaccine before all trial phases are complete.
But, during his appearance on Sunday’s “Face the Nation,” former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb thinks the vaccine is not going to be available to the general public until next year.
“We’re likely to see a stepwise progression of authorization of this vaccine for certain select populations that are at higher risk of either contracting it or having a bad outcome before we see a full approval for the general population,” Gottlieb said. “I think, again, full approval for the general population, where people can go to CVS and get a shot — that’s really a 2021 event, maybe the first quarter of 2021, probably more likely the first half.”
Gottlieb, by the way, is a strong voice of expertise and context during CBS’s coverage of the coronavirus. When I spoke to “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan earlier this year, she told me her show relies heavily on the information provided by Gottlieb, who has been remarkably consistent and accurate with his commentary.
|
