The American media is heading into a second Donald Trump presidency in a state of transition and uncertainty.
Trump has repeatedly referred to journalists as "the enemy of the people" and has even called for investigations and prosecutions against several of them. And with legacy outlets losing their audiences and nontraditional media, like podcasts and TikToks, gaining new prominence, the ability – and willingness – to hold the president-elect accountable could be waning.
Julie Roginsky worked as a political strategist and longtime Fox News and CNBC contributor and now leads the women's empowerment group Lift Our Voices. Brian Karem covered the White House for many years and hosts the podcast "Just Ask the Question.” They both joined KNX News’ daily political show Countdown 2024 to discuss journalism in the age of Trump.
Listen here:
Karem said interviewing Trump, who is an inveterate liar, takes a certain skill that much of the press corps lacks. He anticipates that Trump will cut back on press briefings and limit participation from journalists, and that ”mostly you’re gonna see the bowing of the knee” from what he called the “corporate media.”
“There is no courage in the White House Correspondents Association or among the six or seven corporations, by the way, that own 90% of what you see or hear,” he said.
Karem said the timidity and lack of experience of many of today’s White House correspondents is one cause of the problems.
“There are people graduating from college going straight to the White House,” he said. “They're enamored of the access of being in the White House. They're enamored of being that close to power, and they don't speak up. They've never covered a beat before. They don't know how to ask a question. They don't know how to follow thoughts, listen in the briefing room.”
Roginsky agreed with Karem, adding that this “bowing of the knee” can be traced all the way back to 2015 when Trump descended that golden escalator and declared his candidacy.
“Fox laughed publicly, some laughed harder than others, but nevertheless, nobody took him seriously,” she said. “And then you saw it: the access, the attraction to power, the ability to be able to sit down with the president of the United States and ask him a question, and all of a sudden everybody fell in line.”
“That's a disease that permeates a lot of the D.C. press corps, and the truth of the matter is that access rules the game, right? And if you have access to the president, you are a big deal,” she added.
Even before November’s election, media owners were cozying up to Trump. Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos killed his paper’s Kamala Harris endorsement. L.A. Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong did the same, then took it one step further by floating plans for an AI “bias meter” to combat his staff’s alleged left-wing slant.
“They’re basically using their purchase as owners of the press to steer good coverage, or at least not bad coverage of the administration,” Karem said. “That's how tyranny begins. That's how autocracy begins, when the free press is no longer free, when oligarchs, for lack of a better word, start bending the need to power even before power is actually in power.”
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Roginsky said part of the reason why non-traditional media is on the ascent because it’s the only place to get “people who are not afraid of saying what they mean and meaning what they say because nobody cares about access.”
Listen to the full conversation above, and catch new episodes of Countdown 2024 every weekday at 2:30 p.m.
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