OAJ Hot Take: Our media institutions must rise to the occasion for a second Trump presidency
Both traditional media and social media have deferred to Trump and right-wing talking points. Major change is needed to combat the president-elect's propaganda machine.
The OAJ is currently looking for interested students to join our team! If you’ve read our work before (or if this is your first time), and you like what we do, please email OAJ Executive Editor Paulina Campos at openair@brandeis.edu to join the journal.
The piece below is part of our blog post series written by the Open-Air Journal team where we explore issues at Heller, current events, or whatever is on our minds.
When Donald Trump was elected in 2016, reporters and policymakers reflected on the role of news and social media in his victory. Reporters struggled to grapple with a candidate who made such offensive claims and bold lies. Social media companies struggled to meet the moment after years of neglecting content moderation, which allowed misinformation to flourish. Despite attempts at reform, it is difficult to say that we are better off in 2024. Throughout this campaign season, our media systems failed us by deferring to right-wing rhetoric and misinformation. As we approach a second Trump presidency, it is vital that we do not give up efforts to preserve and strengthen our media institutions if we want to stand a chance at holding the administration accountable and combating harmful propaganda.
It is clear that the journalism industry is in a dire position. A select few powerful people own most of our media sources, while more than half of U.S. counties have near-zero access to a reliable local news source. Dwindling funding leaves reporters dependent on ad revenue generated from clickbait headlines. This means that Trump’s antics are good for business. His shocking statements draw eyeballs, so the media plasters his quotes in the headlines. In fact, Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon said, “the way to deal with [the media] is to flood the zone with shit.” With a shocking item coming out every day, reporters and readers become distracted and confused. They waste their time dissecting the latest nonsensical Trump post, forgetting about the dangerous things he said yesterday and the day before. This also leaves us desensitized to his increasingly dangerous statements.
Some norms of professional journalism have been exposed as liabilities during the Trump years. For example, reporters defer to official sources, such as government officials, to lend themselves credibility and save time. However, reporters were caught off-guard by Trump in 2016 and still have not adapted. As James Risen of The Intercept writes, reporters failed to convey Trump’s danger because they covered him like any other president, “seeking to fit his lunacy into their traditional coverage formulas.” Similarly, a commitment to balanced coverage has resulted in an understatement of a second Trump term’s threat to democracy. Joe Kahn, the executive editor of the New York Times, said in a May 2024 interview that he did not feel a responsibility to preserve democracy if doing so would favor one candidate over another. For Kahn, remaining nonpartisan is more important than conveying the dangers of authoritarian rhetoric. Democracy has become a partisan issue, and the Times is not willing to adjust to that reality.
Kahn also claimed that democracy is not a top priority for Times readers, while the economy and immigration are. “Should we stop covering those things because they’re favorable to Trump and minimize them?” he asked. This framing overlooks the fact that the media shapes what voters believe is important and urgent. Also, the responsibility of the media is to inform readers on important topics, like democracy, regardless of reader interest. It is not responsible for the Times to cater to the desires of readers at the expense of their journalistic duty.
The flaws of traditional media, however, pale in comparison to social media. In 2024, 72% of Americans get news from social media at least some of the time, according to Pew research. Talks of holding social media companies accountable were common after the 2016 election. Today, it seems that we’ve accepted social media’s ill fate. This was cemented with Elon Musk’s 2022 Twitter acquisition. While Twitter had many shortcomings, the company made efforts to boost content moderation and user safety. Musk, however, decided to craft the platform, now known as X, in his image. He removed a number of key privacy and safety features, reinstated banned accounts, and manipulated the algorithm to boost his own posts. By 2024, X was in the perfect position to promote Trump’s campaign.
It is not just X that has de-prioritized content moderation and succumbed to right-wing influence. Experts who worked with social media companies to combat misinformation in the past have noticed “an overall decline in [the companies’] engagement with the issue.” The precedent set by Musk and X has contributed to the rollback of moderation, along with the unfounded accusations that social media platforms censor conservative content (in reality, a majority of “news influencers” are men, and more likely to explicitly identify as conservative). The moderation rollbacks have occurred despite the fact that misinformation is still a very real problem.
With Trump poised to take power, it is vital that we are armed with accurate information to resist the administration’s propaganda campaigns. Traditional media cannot continue to defer to Trump and downplay his threats but instead must call out his lies for what they are. However, the press needs proper support if they are to take on this challenge. Reporters and activists have already called for Congress to pass the PRESS Act, which would provide federal protections for journalists. More broadly, we need publicly funded media that is not subject to market pressures. While NPR and PBS are meant to play this role, they are drastically underfunded compared to international equivalents like the BBC. Even then, Project 2025 outlines a plan (authored by Trump’s pick to lead the FCC) to gut any public media funding. In its absence, philanthropy should help fund independent journalism, especially at the local level. There are some exemplary models of nonprofit newsrooms already, such as ProPublica. As for social media, policymakers must pass stricter regulations to ensure companies are allocating sufficient resources to content moderation, as well as comprehensive AI regulations. Finally, as local progressive victories made clear, community organizing can be an effective way to build trust and share accurate information in our communities. Protecting and strengthening our media institutions will require an all-hands-on-deck approach, but it is essential in the fight against authoritarianism.
 | A guest post by
|