If it was a game, then the media lost every inning in terms of its coverage of Trump since he descended the escalator in the Trump Tower Atrium on June 16, 2015 and began trumpeting the divisive and negative tenor that would drive his campaign by condemning Mexico for sending their drug peddlers, criminals, and rapists to America. He “moderated” his statement by saying, “And some, I assume, are good people.”
Regrettably, it has and will be a game to Trump. He is a wizard at setting the agenda, driving the news cycle, evading any and all questions, and eviscerating his opponents, including the media. If he were a major league pitcher, he would be noted for his fast ball, curve ball, and change up. As noted below, the media may have to adapt game theory as it applies to politics and communication to have any chance of playing.
In their co-dependent relationship, the media enabled Trump’s outrageous behavior at every turn in its pursuit of access, ratings, and readership. It is easy to claim that every jot, tittle, and tweet is news, but what is truly newsworthy? Lelise Moonves said, at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco on February 29, 2016, “It may not be good for America, but it is damn good for CBS.” Moonves, the Chairman of the Board, President, and Chief Executive Officer of CBS Corporation, added, “I’ve never seen anything like this, and this going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It’s a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going.” And Donald did.
Trump won for many reasons, including his relentless, gleeful, and sometimes savage disparagement of the “crooked media.” The Trump effect was not without consequence. As reported in an annual poll released by Gallup in September 2016, the public’s trust and confidence in the media “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly” decreased with just 32% saying they have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the media. Down by 8% from the previous year, it was the lowest level ever in this Gallup poll.
The relationship will become even more contentious now that Trump is President. From the perspective of a two-circle Venn diagram, the Office of the President, the first circle, requires respect. It is challenging, however, to accord much respect to the person of Trump, who occupies the second circle. We can hope that as he is sworn in, the two circles will overlap significantly and that Trump will finally act presidential as the people around him have long promised regarding the mythical pivot. Unfortunately, the possibility of this ever happening is near zero.
The signs that Trump will escalate his war with the media abound, including his behavior at his recent press conference, the first since July 27, 2016, the one in which he pleaded, if Russia had hacked Clinton’s 30,000 missing emails, please release them. Trump’s press conference on January 11, 2017, a three-ring circus, ironically came just a few days before Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced that it would shut down at the end of May 2017. It is notable that Trump has fondly embraced comparisons between him and P.T. Barnum.
The media has no choice but to learn how to “game” Trump and his minions. This will not be easy since Trump could teach a master class in game strategy, and because, for good or ill, Trump has at his disposable the enormous power of the presidency. Part of the approach has to be making media access conditional. Directly covering every Trump tweet is an act of surrender. Better to ignore the tweet directly, while dealing with the topic of the tweet in a way that illuminates what America needs to know about the topic.
Gaming Trump will require some solidarity within the fourth estate. For this to happen, as an example, Moonves will have to rethink what duty CBS has if any to America beyond its own profit motives. If the media is going to protect America, and that is the urgent task at hand, then America will have to be at least as important as ratings or readership.
At a minimum, in a traditional role, the media must, to whatever extent possible, hold Trump accountable by increasing its investigative reporting and by better educating the American public on issues, including working to reach low-information voters in novel ways. It also means connecting with and reporting on all of the disaffected segments within American society.
Gaming Trump, by necessity, will have to balance praising Trump, even if it is about things of minor significance, with critique. Trump has struggled to effectively utilize critique to evaluate his words and actions, and alter his behavior accordingly. To be fair, the Office of the President involves a very steep and challenging learning curve. Critique must be made in a way that presumes good will, even if it is difficult to discern. At a minimum, one must act as if the Office of the President is driven by goodwill. One might report, “President Trump, in his commitment to making America great again, has done so and so. While admirable (or interesting or novel, etc.), the following issues must now be addressed.” The media should also study the ways in which, during the campaign, Kellyanne Conway “gamed” Trump through comments made on cable news, because that is precisely what she did.
Trump represents an “adaptive challenge” to the media, which, to state the obvious, means that traditional approaches no longer work. The field of Adaptive Leadership developed by Ronald Heifetz and others suggests trying many different approaches (they call these interventions), and quickly abandoning those that don’t work in order to innovate. One premise of adaptive leadership is that we have no idea of what will work. It is a matter of ongoing action, reflection, revision, and more action.
What would the effect be, as one intervention, if all mainstream reporters (i.e., not Breitbart or the members of fringe pro-Trump organizations that will apparently invited to be part of the White House press corps to “balance” things out) at the next press conference asked softball questions akin to society page reporting like, “President Trump, what was your favorite moment of the inauguration?”
What would the effect be if, at a White House press briefing with Sean Spicer, not one mainstream reporter asked a question?
What would the effect be if, in a cable news interview with Sean Spicer or Kellyanne Conway, the interviewer asked a question, summarized the response, which obviously would be a pivot, and then re-asked the same question and summarized his or her answer, continuing the process again and again?
These are not prescriptive, but suggestive. The goal is to insist on a quid pro quo for access, rather than accepting bread crumbs time after time.
The media should explore game theory as it applies to both communication and politics. There is, of course, a caveat since game theory assumes the participation of rational actors. For some background, consider reading a sobering article written by Mohamed El-Erian in The Atlantic in January 2013 entitled, How Game Theory Explains Washington’s Horrible Gridlock. (www.theatlantic.com/...)
It is difficult to know which adaptive interventions will be effective, but two things are clear. First, a modicum of respect must be accorded the Office of the President and, second, the media must be very creative in responding to Trump’s daily agenda to make governance and political dialogue tweetingly superficial. Trump, who is driven by impulse and ego in somewhat equal measure, is the Wizard of Id. He is a formidable opponent and the way forward will neither be easy nor obvious.
If it was a game, then the media lost every inning in terms of its coverage of Trump since he descended the escalator in the Trump Tower Atrium on June 16, 2015 and began trumpeting the divisive and negative tenor that would drive his campaign by condemning Mexico for sending their drug peddlers, criminals, and rapists to America. He “moderated” his statement by saying, “And some, I assume, are good people.”
Regrettably, it has and will be a game to Trump. He is a wizard at setting the agenda, driving the news cycle, evading any and all questions, and eviscerating his opponents, including the media. If he were a major league pitcher, he would be noted for his fast ball, curve ball, and change up. As noted below, the media may have to adapt game theory as it applies to politics and communication to have any chance of playing.
In their co-dependent relationship, the media enabled Trump’s outrageous behavior at every turn in its pursuit of access, ratings, and readership. It is easy to claim that every jot, tittle, and tweet is news, but what is truly newsworthy? Lelise Moonves said, at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco on February 29, 2016, “It may not be good for America, but it is damn good for CBS.” Moonves, the Chairman of the Board, President, and Chief Executive Officer of CBS Corporation, added, “I’ve never seen anything like this, and this going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It’s a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going.” And Donald did.
Trump won for many reasons, including his relentless, gleeful, and sometimes savage disparagement of the “crooked media.” The Trump effect was not without consequence. As reported in an annual poll released by Gallup in September 2016, the public’s trust and confidence in the media “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly” decreased with just 32% saying they have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the media. Down by 8% from the previous year, it was the lowest level ever in this Gallup poll.
The relationship will become even more contentious now that Trump is President. From the perspective of a two-circle Venn diagram, the Office of the President, the first circle, requires respect. It is challenging, however, to accord much respect to the person of Trump, who occupies the second circle. We can hope that as he is sworn in, the two circles will overlap significantly and that Trump will finally act presidential as the people around him have long promised regarding the mythical pivot. Unfortunately, the possibility of this ever happening is near zero.
The signs that Trump will escalate his war with the media abound, including his behavior at his recent press conference, the first since July 27, 2016, the one in which he pleaded, if Russia had hacked Clinton’s 30,000 missing emails, please release them. Trump’s press conference on January 11, 2017, a three-ring circus, ironically came just a few days before Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced that it would shut down at the end of May 2017. It is notable that Trump has fondly embraced comparisons between him and P.T. Barnum.
The media has no choice but to learn how to “game” Trump and his minions. This will not be easy since Trump could teach a master class in game strategy, and because, for good or ill, Trump has at his disposable the enormous power of the presidency. Part of the approach has to be making media access conditional. Directly covering every Trump tweet is an act of surrender. Better to ignore the tweet directly, while dealing with the topic of the tweet in a way that illuminates what America needs to know about the topic.
Gaming Trump will require some solidarity within the fourth estate. For this to happen, as an example, Moonves will have to rethink what duty CBS has if any to America beyond its own profit motives. If the media is going to protect America, and that is the urgent task at hand, then America will have to be at least as important as ratings or readership.
At a minimum, in a traditional role, the media must, to whatever extent possible, hold Trump accountable by increasing its investigative reporting and by better educating the American public on issues, including working to reach low-information voters in novel ways. It also means connecting with and reporting on all of the disaffected segments within American society.
Gaming Trump, by necessity, will have to balance praising Trump, even if it is about things of minor significance, with critique. Trump has struggled to effectively utilize critique to evaluate his words and actions, and alter his behavior accordingly. To be fair, the Office of the President involves a very steep and challenging learning curve. Critique must be made in a way that presumes good will, even if it is difficult to discern. At a minimum, one must act as if the Office of the President is driven by goodwill. One might report, “President Trump, in his commitment to making America great again, has done so and so. While admirable (or interesting or novel, etc.), the following issues must now be addressed.” The media should also study the ways in which, during the campaign, Kellyanne Conway “gamed” Trump through comments made on cable news, because that is precisely what she did.
Trump represents an “adaptive challenge” to the media, which, to state the obvious, means that traditional approaches no longer work. The field of Adaptive Leadership developed by Ronald Heifetz and others suggests trying many different approaches (they call these interventions), and quickly abandoning those that don’t work in order to innovate. One premise of adaptive leadership is that we have no idea of what will work. It is a matter of ongoing action, reflection, revision, and more action.
What would the effect be, as one intervention, if all mainstream reporters (i.e., not Breitbart or the members of fringe pro-Trump organizations that will apparently invited to be part of the White House press corps to “balance” things out) at the next press conference asked softball questions akin to society page reporting like, “President Trump, what was your favorite moment of the inauguration?”
What would the effect be if, at a White House press briefing with Sean Spicer, not one mainstream reporter asked a question?
What would the effect be if, in a cable news interview with Sean Spicer or Kellyanne Conway, the interviewer asked a question, summarized the response, which obviously would be a pivot, and then re-asked the same question and summarized his or her answer, continuing the process again and again?
These are not prescriptive, but suggestive. The goal is to insist on a quid pro quo for access, rather than accepting bread crumbs time after time.
The media should explore game theory as it applies to both communication and politics. There is, of course, a caveat since game theory assumes the participation of rational actors. For some background, consider reading a sobering article written by Mohamed El-Erian in The Atlantic in January 2013 entitled, How Game Theory Explains Washington’s Horrible Gridlock. (www.theatlantic.com/...)
It is difficult to know which adaptive interventions will be effective, but two things are clear. First, a modicum of respect must be accorded the Office of the President and, second, the media must be very creative in responding to Trump’s daily agenda to make governance and political dialogue tweetingly superficial. Trump, who is driven by impulse and ego in somewhat equal measure, is the Wizard of Id. He is a formidable opponent and the way forward will neither be easy nor obvious.