Washington's revolving door
What the political press hasn't learned over the last four years
Washington is broken. This we know. But that phrase typically lends itself to conversations about our government. President Trump’s “Drain the swamp” message resonated with Americans because we have long considered Washington to be a corrupt arena in which the powerful grow their power while ignoring the rest of us 350 million Americans.
But ‘Washington is broken’ can also mean our political press, also known as “the media.” While some politicians look at the K Street revolving door, other administration officials look to the news industry as a next career.
This has been the way for as long as I can remember. Tim Russert (chief of staff to Sen. Patrick Moynihan); John McLaughlin (speechwriter for President Nixon); George Stephanopolous (White House communications director for President Clinton).
And these aren’t even the talking heads/punditry class.
ABC News this week will have Sara Isgur on its “Powerhouse Roundtable.”
Talking to Politico last November, Steve Hayes, editor of The Dispatch said about Isgur:
“Her ability to distill really complicated crazy issues in clear and concise ways is just a huge gift,” said Hayes, editor in chief of The Dispatch. “One of the things that we’re trying to do institutionally is to explain things and make things comprehensible to the average person reading us, such as in my hometown of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.”
Isgur, a writer at conservative newsletter The Dispatch, has been converted into “Very Serious Writer” mode over the last couple of years after getting Borked from CNN ahead of the 2020 election, when she was hired to oversee political coverage but then never made it to the network after voices rose in opposition. Why? Because Isgur a) had zero experience as a journalist, and b) had been the Justice Department’s spokesperson under Jeff Sessions, allegedly taking a loyalty oath to the President.
And as the DOJ spokesperson, Isgur defended the President’s and Sessions’ child separation policies.
This is the second week in a row ABC News had an unreliable narrator on its august stage. Last Sunday, Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) appeared on the show, only to use the tv program to claim that Biden hasn’t yet won the election (he did) and that there was voter fraud in Georgia (there wasn’t).
And this comes on the heels of reporting from the Washington Post that just 27 of the 249 Republicans in Congress, across both houses, acknowledged that Biden is the president-elect.
And yet, networks and newspapers will continue to allow this fiction to continue. Why? There is no reason for reporters, print or TV or digital or radio, to give people who wantonly lie about everything from the size of an inauguration to who *actually* won the election a platform.
A big part of the Washington press problem is its horse-race mentality, which seems to have only gotten worse in the age of Twitter. Take today’s Hunt for Biden’s Attorney General stories as an example.
Coming down the stretch, it’s neck-and-neck between Doug Collins, Sally Yates and Merrick Garland! This isn’t a ‘who cares’ story, as the Attorney General is a huge job. But frames for these stories create a tension that doesn’t need to be there. Perhaps we just wait until Biden announces his selections? Ah, you say, but then publishers won’t have content to hit ad impression goals, or reporters won’t have the ability to cultivate sources.
Access journalism runs rampant in trade press; no matter the industry, whether it’s the softball approach in the advertising/media trade press (of which I am a serial offender; sorry) or the political press. (We touched on this when we talked about sourcing in stories.)
Which is what gets us articles like this Washington Post piece about Alyssa Farah, who resigned from her post as White House communications director last week. The story walks readers through Farah’s three-and-a-half-year tenure in the Trump administration, with nary a mention of Farah overseeing a communications strategy that had lying as the default response and calling journalists “enemy of the people.”
In today’s Press Run, Eric Boehlert writes about how The Washington Post has taken a less-than-critical eye towards outgoing administration officials:
My hunch: Farah and Ivanka have likely been helpful sources for reporters documenting the White House palace intrigue; those nameless West Wing aides who sometimes confide to reporters, off the record of course, that some staffers are concerned about Trump's behavior. These sources get rewarded with pleasing press profiles, as a way to thank them for their anonymous quotes, and helping to provide the appearance of access to the Trump White House.
That's how the game gets played. And that's why the Post is still publishing puff pieces on the incompetent Trump White House, one month before the circus is forced to close its doors.
Here’s the thing. The circus won’t be folding its tent anytime soon as long as the political press—from the Sunday shows to anonymous sources—gives them a place to spin their tales. It’s why the Metatron of Trump gets a multi-million-dollar book deal.
The most direct way of righting these wrongs: don’t book current or former government officials who have shown time and again that they have a terrible relationship with the truth. Of course, all politicians lie, and it’s the journalist’s role to hold them accountable for their lies. It’s not too late to start.
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Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Swamp Music”
Some interesting links:
For platforms:
State, federal authorities expected to file antitrust lawsuits against Facebook on Wednesday (Washington Post)
Twitter to undergo brand safety audit, pledges research (Business Insider)
Supporting the 2020 election (YouTube)
With 100 billion hours watched on YouTube for gaming, the site prepares for global growth (Washington Post)
For brand safety:
These brands are funding climate change denial (Twitter)
For year-end best-of:
The New Yorker’s best podcasts (The New Yorker)
Adweek’s best TV shows (Adweek)
For agency POV on streaming:
The impact of Warner Bros. HBO Max news on ad-supported TV (GroupM)
For when cybersecurity firms get hacked:
FireEye, a Top Cybersecurity Firm, Says It Was Hacked by a Nation-State (NYT)
For publishers:
Fortune union asks management to commit to diversity (TalkingBizNews)
For TV ratings: