Michael Wolff’s exposé Fire and Fury is the talk of every town today. Wolff’s book has been simultaneously praised for its damning revelations and criticized for his cavalier style of journalism. Wolff has been accused of writing insincere puff pieces to ingratiate himself with Trump and Bannon, so as to get access to the White House, which enabled him to write this book. Many refer to his reputation of embellishing the truth in his gossipy writings, and blowing things up out of proportion. He’s been charged with misrepresenting himself to interview subjects, misquoting people, and pretty much every other journalistic slight imaginable.
My reaction is: So what? The book rings true, so let’s not quibble about how the sausage got made.
My observation is: The operation of this White House is so far removed from reality that it takes a different kind of journalism to cover it effectively. Our basic standards of journalistic integrity are supposed to ensure that stories present the truth of the matter. Those standards are meant to be robust enough to deal with deception, but I believe we have seen they are inadequate to dealing with the level of dishonesty and outright denial of reality that exists in Trumpland. While trying to stay on guard for attempts to deceive, journalists often assume a minimum level of good faith in their subjects. The problem is that the Trump Syndicate shows no good faith whatsoever.
If you wrestle with a pig, you’re going to get dirty. It took a lot of chutzpah for Wolff to do what he did. Most “respectable” journalists would not sully themselves to do what it took for Wolff to get this story. Credit where credit is due.
What worries me is what this says about the effectiveness of American journalism. How can we cover bad faith actors in roles where we must assume good faith for them to do their jobs? Do we need new standards for journalism? To my mind, this is the second biggest story in this book, and it’s being largely overlooked.