WaPo columnist: Abandon objectivity when covering Trump

FPI / February 26, 2020

A Washington Post columnist said journalists should abandon any of their remaining objectivity in their coverage of President Donald Trump.

The media should not provide “the phony kind of fairness that tries to duck out of difficult decisions by giving ‘both sides’ of an argument equal time,” and that “in this new era, my prescription is less false-equivalence, more high-impact language, and more willingness to take a stand for democracy,” Margaret Sullivan wrote on Feb. 23.

“Stand for democracy”?

Or “stand for Democrats”?

“Obviously, our media do not fear being charged with bias,” conservative NewsBusters contributing writer PJ Gladnick noted in response to Sullivan’s screed.

“They overflow with bias. Sullivan’s just unhappy that it’s just not working,” Gladnick wrote. “Trump is rising in the polls, even as the press doubles down on the negativity. They’ve yelled themselves hoarse, and now they’re staring at the growing prospect of Four More Years.”

Sullivan, who was previously the public editor at The New York Times, said journalists should “abandon neutrality-at-all-costs journalism” and replace it with something she called “Fairness First.”

“I’m talking about the kind of fairness that serves the public by describing the world we report on in honest and direct terms — not the phony kind of fairness that tries to duck out of difficult decisions by giving ‘both sides’ of an argument equal time, regardless of their truth or merit,” Sullivan wrote.

“Call it Trump Unbound. In this new era, Trump has declared himself the nation’s chief law enforcement official. He has pardoned a raft of corrupt officials. He has exacted revenge on those he sees as his impeachment enemies,” Sullivan wrote.

Sullivan continued: “In other words, we are in entirely new territory now. Should the news media continue as usual? Should it retain its own traditions as the nation slides toward autocracy? Should it treat the Trump presidency as pretty much the usual thing, with a few more fact-checks and the occasional use of a word like ‘lie?’ No.”

In other words, continue doing what they have been doing since Trump came down the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy, only not deny they are doing it.

Sullivan added that the leftist media mob she is a part of needs “a new and better approach if we’re going to do our jobs adequately.”

Sullivan ended her piece by saying “with Trump unbound, the news media need to change. Yes, radically. The stakes are too high not to.”

Free Press International