This article is a follow-up on other recent DKos articles about some mainstream media outlets’ failure to tell their readers clearly and honestly about Donald Trump’s plans to subvert our democracy, should he win the 2024 election. See Dartagnan’s recent post for one example. I know there are others but don’t have time to track them down. Feel free to remind my addled brain of the others in comments.
I thought it would be useful to link some counter-examples, in the outside chance that attention from others here might help raise awareness of the danger to a wider audience. Again, this list is just a brief sample. Feel free to add more links in the comments. If nothing else, it might give some of you who actually subscribe to outlets such as the NY Times and the Washington Post some extra backing for your complaints to their cowardly or complicit editorial leadership team. They might even listen and change their practices.
Here are some useful links:
- Salon.com senior writer Chauncey Devega has been sounding the alarm for years. Here is the most recent example of a long series of articles and interviews he has done on the dangers to our government posed by Donald Trump.
- Jack Shafer, senior media writer at Politico, posted this response to the same Washington Post article that Dartagnan cited as an example of journalistic soft-pedaling. Shafer doesn’t soft-pedal.
- Jackie Calmes, opinion columnist for the LA Times, posted an editorial reflecting on the NY Times and Washington Post articles about Trump’s plans. She expresses scepticism that any of the existing constitutional guardrails will protect our democracy should Trump come to power again. Her solution? “The best guardrail is not electing Trump, period.”
- Tom Nichols, writer at The Atlantic, posted this article, also reflecting on the Washington Post article. The article is behind a paywall, but it clearly terms another Trump administration a dictatorship.