My Washington Post colleagues have observed that Donald Trump’s interview with Fox News personality Megyn Kelly wasn’t newsy. It was the sort of gauzy, nonconfrontational and unrevealing celebrity interview you might have expected if Trump were not the presumptive nominee of the GOP.
By focusing on herself and her relationship with Trump rather than treating Trump as any uncooperative, evasive interviewee, Kelly in essence conceded that Trump had won. He has succeeded in pushing her to join the cast of characters at Fox (most notoriously, Sean Hannity) who no longer do news — not real news, at any rate.
Kelly now risks becoming yet another chess piece in Trump’s game of intimidation, cajoling, complaining and free-riding on so-called earned media. (To those who say Barbara Walters did such interviews without damaging her news brand, we can only remark that Kelly is no Walters and does not have decades of real journalism under her belt.)
This, by the way, is not a criticism of Trump. Anything but. He has simply revealed how desperate the cable networks are for ratings and how low their standards can be driven.
We have seen the descent of some outlets and some journalists into faux news, in which they put out a mix of gossip, spin and sometimes flat-out untruths under the guise of “news.” I say “some” because exceptions to the rule — Jake Tapper at CNN, Martha Raddatz at ABC, John Dickerson at CBS, Chris Wallace and Bret Baier at Fox, etc. — remind us that good journalists suffer because of the prevalence of faux journalism. When a legitimate newsperson challenges Trump on nonsense — e.g. Rafael Cruz and the JFK assassination — it is greeted with shock and applause. That’s because it is so rare.
Conservatives who used to defend Fox from liberal accusations that Fox was not news at all would point to legitimate coverage from reporters such as Major Garrett and James Rosen, arguing that the nighttime lineup was different.
Now the entire enterprise, accelerated by Kelly’s dive into compliant interviews, is blemished. Cringe-worthy cheerleading is becoming the dominant tone, with only pockets of genuine news coverage.
The phony, tunnel-visioned news phenomenon did not start this election season, but it has gotten worse. It unfortunately confuses viewers more than it enlightens them. Moreover, it heightens the already dangerous polarization in which the urban, coastal, mostly liberal America and the religious, more rural and mostly conservative America cease to coexist. They no longer share the same set of facts or the same standards for news. (National Enquirer is now a respected news outlet for half of the country?!)
There is a “solution” to the problem — the consumer market. Conservatives revolted by Fox’s Trump coverage are setting out in search of something approaching dispassionate news.
It’s a critical moment, whether other cable and broadcast news outlets know it or not.
Now is the time to demonstrate that they are not liberal versions of Fox. Now they can show what a rigorous interview looks like and what purpose fact-checking serves. Conservatives might learn an important lesson, namely that in the broad category of the “mainstream media” there is good journalism and bad journalism.
One hopes that the “real” news wins out and that Fox pays a penalty for obliterating any remnants of journalistic ethics (with the exceptions noted above). There is no guarantee that will be the case, however. Ultimately, we get the government and the press we deserve. And that’s what worries me.
Jennifer Rubin contributes to