Irish playwright and one-time journalist Oscar Wilde once quipped, “In America, the president reigns for four years, and journalism governs forever and ever.” Sadly, the last four years of American journalism were as forgettable as a Nicholas Cage movie.
In a startling departure from the dogged fact-finding, incisive analysis, and sharp writing that characterize the best political journalism, reporters covering the Trump White House press corps devolved into a churning mass of Twitter addicts
breathlessly waiting for their next hit, typically coming in the form of semi- coherent tweets from the former White House resident-in-chief.
To be fair, the Trump administration could have and should have had a significantly tighter reign on the former president’s penchant to wield Twitter like a flamethrower. Tighter control would have undoubtedly helped the former president’s communications team—perhaps the most benighted group of people in modern PR history—avoid the countless legal headaches and near-daily crises that occurred as a result.
The fact of the matter is, when the press was faced with the critical choice of holding fast to the industry’s ethical and professional standards or stooping to the level of the politicians they covered, they chose the latter with gusto. Perennial institutions like The New York Times and the Washington Post cast aside all semblances of nonpartisanship and let their opinion pages take the wheel of the entire paper for four years, spewing out an unending stream of shock and outrage at the expense of fact-based reporting and levelheaded analysis.
Fortunately, better days seem to be on the horizon for American journalism. With the return of the White House Daily Briefing, the hundred-year-old tradition of give-and-take should help restore the national political dialogue to at least a semi-professional state.
To regain a sense of self-respect, the journalists covering the Biden White House will need to avoid temptation to go easy on President Biden simply because he sounds and acts like an adult. Holding members of the executive and legislative branches accountable for their behavior and ideas is an important function the free press should be eager to continue, as long as it’s carried out in the interest of informing the public rather than in the interest of the media outlets or the journalists themselves.
For his part, Biden and his communication team will need to work hard to overcome the inertia resulting from the reality that the White House communications bar has been set remarkably low for them. Staff should continue to operate at a high level of professionalism and work to establish a healthy and collaborative relationship with the press, recognizing that they can be allies more often than not in the ongoing effort to inform the public.
If either the Biden administration or the press corps fails in their efforts, the biggest losers will once again be the American people.
