The NABJ Trump Interview Is a Model for Media Coverage

I have complained frequently about the mainstream media's ongoing failure to adequately challenge the endless lies and overt racism that spew from Donald Trump's mouth incessantly.  Similarly, while the media fixated on Joe Biden's age and supposed fragility, no similar coverage has focused on Trump's declining mental faculties and age - or how devastating Trump's economic proposals would be for millions of Americans.  We instead see softball questions and no meaningful follow up or challenges to blatant untruths.  I find it maddening.   Thankfully, the National Association of Black Journalists ("NABJ") interview of Trump last week showed how journalists need to treat Trump who was yanked off the interview by his own handlers as he said one inflammatory and untruthful statement after another. At the NAGJ event, Trump faced relentless fact checking and follow up questioning.  The mainstream media needs to learn a lesson and use the NABJ model in all future interviews and/or debates involving Trump.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the NABJ event and Trump's being held accountable:

The National Association of Black Journalists’ invitation to former president Donald Trump to sit for an interview last Wednesday at its Chicago convention had its critics. Don’t platform him. Don’t allow him to soft-pedal his racism. The critics’ assumption that NABJ members were somehow being manipulated proved to be unfounded; instead, we got the most revealing questioning of Trump in this election cycle. In the process, the interview revealed shortcomings in news coverage of Trump’s campaign so far.

“Trump drew audible gasps and disbelieving laughter over the roughly 35-minute sit-down session as he berated a Black reporter who pressed him about past offensive comments, falsely claimed that undocumented immigrants were ‘taking’ attendees’ votes, and suggested [Vice President] Harris ‘was Indian all the way’ before ‘all of a sudden she made a turn’ and ‘became a Black person.’”

Rachel Scott of ABC News, in addition to confronting Trump with some of his past racially incendiary remarks, got him to admit that he would spare Jan. 6 insurrectionists who assaulted police officers. . . . And in a rare real-time correction, Scott didn’t let Trump get away with claiming that Democrats allow babies to die after birth.

Trump’s NABJ appearance also afforded Harris the opportunity later on Wednesday to rebuke his hateful rhetoric in a way that made him look like a sad has-been. “It was the same old show. The divisiveness and the disrespect,” she declared in a speech in Houston. “And let me just say: The American people deserve better. The American people deserve better.” She continued, “The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth, a leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts. We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us.

No other single interview or media encounter with Trump in this cycle has laid bare as much about the candidate or opened him up to as much criticism. Kudos go to Scott and her co-moderators in Chicago. The NABJ interview also raises a troubling question: What’s wrong with the rest of the media?

Not one question in the CNN-hosted debate with Trump and President Biden on June 27 confronted Trump about racism or antisemitism. . . . CNN’s debate moderators did not ask about pardons for Jan. 6. insurrectionists.

Unfortunately, too many in the mainstream political media have been taken in by Republican spin. The preposterous suggestion that, after the assassination attempt, Trump might have “changed,” entertained as a possibility by far too many outlets . . . . unsurprisingly turned out to be wishful thinking.

The initial reaction to Trump’s NABJ interview appeared to be tepid in many quarters. Relatively benign phrases such as “racially insensitive” to describe such patently bigoted comments serve only to normalize Trump. Too few reports noted that Trump was yanked off the stage by his own staff after 35 minutes.

The mainstream media now faces a test of sorts. After the June 27 debate, the media spent three weeks flooding the zone with coverage of Biden’s frailty, in effect demanding every Democrat to defend Biden or distance themselves from him, and consulting a host of experts on aging. (As I have noted, the vast majority of outlets also have steered clear of assessing Trump’s mental and emotional state, despite repeated episodes in which his slurred speech, verbal glitches, incoherent ranting, mixing up people and bizarre references are obvious to anyone watching.)

Truth demands the free press pull no punches, even if that appears to be “taking sides.” (Taking the side of truth is the media’s job.) The NABJ journalists showed how it’s done. Now we wait to see whether others will follow their lead.

 Failure to deploy similarly exacting treatment of Trump would confirm Democrats’ complaints that there is a bizarre double standard in coverage that allows Trump to escape appropriate scrutiny. It’s long past time to stop using euphemisms and soft-pedaling his bigotry.