A Newspaper Editor's Brilliant Take on How to Cover Donald Trump
"There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it."
On Saturday, Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer published a letter from its editor, Chris Quinn, with a straightforward message for Trump-supporting critics of the paper’s coverage. In it, Quinn addresses a tough question: How should the news cover politicians like Donald Trump?
Here’s the part of the newsletter where I say The Present Age is reader-supported. Please consider subscribing to the free or paid versions. Thanks!
He openly shares the struggle of reporting honestly without alienating readers or compromising on the truth. This question is not limited to Trump (though he’s certainly the most prominent example of a politician who operates from a base of lies) or any single politician; it's about the broader challenge facing journalists today — how to stay fair and factual in a world where readers often see what they want to see.
Quinn's letter takes us behind the scenes, offering a glimpse into the difficult decisions editors and reporters have to make every day.
“Our Trump reporting upsets some readers, but there aren’t two sides to facts: Letter from the Editor” (The Plain Dealer, Chris Quinn, 3/30/24)
This is a tough column to write, because I don’t want to demean or insult those who write me in good faith. I’ve started it a half dozen times since November but turned to other topics each time because this needle hard to thread. No matter how I present it, I’ll offend some thoughtful, decent people.
The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information.
The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse.
This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw, but our eyes don’t deceive. (If leaders began a yearslong campaign today to convince us that the Baltimore bridge did not collapse Tuesday morning, would you ever believe them?) Trust your eyes. Trump on Jan. 6 launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it.
The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it.
Too few news organizations are willing to take the same stand as Chris Quinn of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, instead often falling into the trap of "both-sides-ism" in a misguided attempt to win over conservative audiences. This trend undermines the pursuit of truth, pushing the media towards a perception of neutrality that can distort reality and muddy the waters of factual reporting. In their effort to appear balanced, these organizations risk legitimizing harmful and false rhetoric and actions by giving them equal weight against reasoned arguments and evidence. This approach not only compromises journalistic integrity but also fails to hold powerful figures accountable, leaving audiences poorly informed about the critical issues facing society.
An example of this problematic approach can be seen in NBC News' decision to hire, and then quickly fire, former Republican National Committee head Ronna McDaniel as an on-air contributor. McDaniel, who played an active role in supporting Trump's baseless efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, was controversially brought into a position that would allow her to shape public discourse directly. This move signaled to journalists, politicians, and audiences that a platform for disseminating information could be provided to individuals deeply involved in undermining democratic processes, regardless of the consequences. Such decisions erode trust in the media's role as a guardian of democracy and highlight the dangerous implications of prioritizing access and perceived balance over factual accuracy and ethical journalism.
What’s worse is that NBC News didn’t seem to learn from its mistake. Instead, the organization has gone into panic mode, once again worrying about alienating conservative viewers rather than simply focusing on the accurate reporting of the news. The truth is that there’s no “neutral” presentation of the news that will appeal to people who promote baseless conspiracy theories about there being “problems” (to quote McDaniel) with the 2020 election results. There weren’t “problems,” and to say otherwise is to push a massive lie that’s contributed to the weakening of our already fragile democratic republic.
And here’s a mini-rant about news media and trans people.
And while I’m on the topic of paid contributors, I think it’s also worth noting that despite the fact that Republicans have made legislative attacks on the rights of transgender people of all ages central to their 2024 campaign, the only trans person with a paid contributor deal on TV is Fox News’ Caitlyn Jenner — and she appears mostly to argue that Republicans are correct in their anti-trans crusade. No NBC. No CNN. No ABC, CBS, or PBS. The same can be said about all the major newspapers, which regularly publish anti-trans arguments from anti-trans columnists, but don’t employ a single trans columnist.
Just last week, a Media Matters/GLAAD study found that 66% of The New York Times reported pieces about anti-trans legislation didn’t even bother to quote a single person who would be affected by said legislation. That’s just journalistic hackery that should fill editors with shame.
Trans people aren’t treated as human beings who have a right to exist in society, but as a problem that needs to be dealt with. Until trans people are (at bare minimum) quoted in stories about legislation that would affect how we’re able to live our lives and given an opinion platform to push back on the anti-trans points of view that have been mainstreamed by outlets like the Times, how can any conversation about our rights be considered fair?
Instead, news organizations are rushing out to pay conservative talking heads $300,000 per year (as McDaniel was reportedly going to be paid) to spread lies about the last election. It makes me sick.
How sad that this is indeed a brilliant take and not just completely obvious standard practice.
He also said that people ask "Why don’t our opinion platforms treat Donald Trump and other politicians exactly the same way."
And the answer is, they do.* That's what's got the Trump supporters in a snit. You have to move heaven and earth to make Trump sound like an even halfway normal human being and/or reasonable politician, and his supporters have become conditioned to expect that special treatment. You could say they're spoiled, delicate and entitled, if you wanted to be cheeky about it, which I do.
*(At my last newsroom job I was asked directly why I wanted to cover Donald Trump differently from other candidates, and I replied that on the contrary, I wanted us to cover him exactly like we would any other source with his track record, in any section of the report. (For example, our sports reporters would never have listened to a word a coach or a manager who lied so often said.)