Cherwitz and Zagacki: The media should turn off the Trump's un … – St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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Former President Donald Trump waits to take the witness stand during his civil fraud trial at New York Supreme Court Nov. 6 in New York.
It concerned us that the news networks spent almost all their air time providing live coverage of former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud case testimony. One can only imagine the media circus enveloping Trump’s other trials. On the one hand, networks have a journalistic duty to report on events as significant as a former president’s legal perils. On the other hand, the media’s nonstop focus on Trump’s rants and bombastic rhetoric gives him the opportunity he so desperately craves to lash out at his so-called enemies.
Trump is well-schooled in using the media to further his ends while vilifying it as part of the corrupt establishment. It is something he has successfully orchestrated for most of his adult life; Trump is an expert at politicizing legal proceedings, in particular. He recognizes that the mediated images of his courtroom behavior confirm stories he has recited before about his enemies and their debased ways.
Trump’s antics represent a form of political theater often utilized by authoritarian leaders, one perfectly suited for modern media. He exploits media attention to create an epic drama in which he is a hero and those who oppose him are villains. The evil scapegoats responsible for his (and the country’s) problems — on full display in the Manhattan courtroom — must be symbolically (if not in some cases literally) destroyed.
Trump’s drama, amplified through or by the media, resonates especially with base supporters and some other voters. They believe that, as he and conservative media have repeated over and over, Trump is fighting for them against unscrupulous and traitorous “Deep State” attorneys generals, prosecutors, and judges — all of them, of course, unleashed by President Biden.
As Bret Stephens described Trump’s strategy in a recent opinion piece in The New York Times, the indictments and the media coverage of them help Trump “because they play to his outlaw appeal. He wants to cast himself as the Josey Wales of American politics. His entire argument is that ‘the system’ — particularly the Justice Department — is broken, biased and corrupt, so anything the system does against him is proof of its corruption rather than of his. And tens of millions of people agree with him.”
To increase ratings, the media play into and even encourage this dramatic narrative by providing suspenseful news coverage and by portraying political actors as good or bad, depending on the media outlet.
Trump’s courtroom tirades may titillate some and expand viewership and hence television ratings. However, all they do is give oxygen to Trump’s temper tantrums and perfectly contrived, vicious courtroom attacks.
Trump’s highly publicized rants are not without tremendous consequences. Because in any epic drama, good must be preserved and evil purged, Trump’s courtroom histrionics, emphasized by the media, put court officials including juries at risk. Indeed, we worry that, given their already deep distrust in government institutions fomented by Trump, as well as the willingness of so many Trump followers to participate in, applaud, and downplay the storming of the US capitol on January 6, Trump’s feigned outrage and dark drama about America could incite his supporters to greater violence. As fellow actors in Trump’s (mediated) drama, supporters may take the law into their own hands to rid the world of his tormentors.
Political communication scholars Dan Nimmo and James Combs once pointed out in their book “Mediated Political Realities” that the media transforms political reality into fantasy so that reality disappears. If the media are going to cover Trump’s trials, they should do so critically, focusing on reality, without allowing Trump to manipulate them. For example, they might concentrate on the seriousness of the charges against Trump and the veracity of his legal defenses.
In addition, the media must analyze and caution about the threats his mediated drama poses to democratic institutions, the political purposes behind his dramatic performances, and how they easily dupe people. If Trump’s sordid legal history and recent efforts to overturn democracy are any indication, the media should take nothing he does in court at face value.
The bottom line: We urge the media to turn off the Trump show.
Richard Cherwitz is an emeritus professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Kenneth Zagacki is a professor of communication at North Carolina State University.
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Former President Donald Trump waits to take the witness stand during his civil fraud trial at New York Supreme Court Nov. 6 in New York.
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