NYU Journalism Professor has been alarmed by USA President Donald Trump – which is unlikely to surprise readers of this blog.<\/p>\n
<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Professor Rosen\u00a0is hardly more sanguine about the journalists who “cover” him. This is from a recent twitter thread you can find at at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jayrosen_nyu\">@jayrosen_nyu<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The most basic tool a critic has is not to complain or object, but to describe. Here is my latest attempt to describe what is going wrong in the press treatment of Donald Trump. I wrote it as a Twitter thread \u2014 a series of connected thoughts \u2014 on the occasion of his first 100 days.<\/p>\n<p>The title is: “The everyday language of news distorts the reality of Trump.” For among my conclusions from watching press coverage of the first 100 days: Normal language will be used for what it i<span class=\"text_exposed_show\">s not in any way normal. Ready? Here goes…<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"text_exposed_show\">\n<blockquote><p>On day 100 of Trump-in-power a thread about failed descriptors that keep the press from rendering the situation in its various extremes.<\/p>\n<p>Forced to choose between inventing a language for a presidency without precedent and distorting the picture by relying on normal terms, the newswriters have frequently chosen inaccuracy by means of a received language, even though they know there’s nothing normal here.<\/p>\n<p>With no details \u2014 and no evidence of planning or deliberation \u2014 calling a page of bullet points his tax “plan” misdescribes what he did.<\/p>\n<p>It might seem harmlessly routine for PBS Newshour to announce a look back at Trump’s “foreign policy accomplishments and setbacks,” except there is no evidence that he HAS a foreign policy, and lots of evidence he does not.<\/p>\n<p>The most you can say is: stuff happened, and he reacted.<\/p>\n<p>It goes further. Even to say the president has views is a distortion. There are particles and waves but these do not amount to “positions.” Every report on his ‘flip-flopping’ suffers by the implication that he had some sort of position in the first place. Nope. He just said stuff.<\/p>\n<p>Talk of \u201ca steep learning curve\u201d credits him with learning. Got any evidence of that? Reacting, yes… but learning?<\/p>\n<p>My point is the press is running into trouble with basic description because the thing being described violates baseline expectations.<\/p>\n<p>Now flip it around. Just as thoughtless use of normal terms distorts an extreme situation, using accurate terms may sound ‘too extreme.’ An example I’ve used: many things he does can only be explained via Narcissistic Personality Disorder. But that is off limits to newsrooms.<\/p>\n<p>As <a class=\"profileLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/joshuamicahmarshall\">Josh Marshall<\/a> has written, “He is not only ignorant but clearly unaware of his level of ignorance.”<\/p>\n<p>When extreme facts about a president cannot be rendered in news space without the speaker sounding extreme, the facts had better watch out. And it’s this dynamic that creates ‘normalization’ by news: an accurate account feels less believable because the reality is so whacked.<\/p>\n<p>But all is not lost! Here, NBC’s Chuck Todd describes an extreme situation with Trump, but stays within the language of news. Watch the clip: it’s way better than you might think. <a href=\"http:\/\/pic.twitter.com\/AeqaCv5kH2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/AeqaCv5kH2<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NYU Journalism Professor has been alarmed by USA President Donald Trump – which is unlikely to surprise readers of this blog. Professor Rosen\u00a0is hardly more sanguine about the journalists who “cover” him. This is from a recent twitter thread you … <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/2017\/05\/04\/a-succinct-explanation-of-hate-speech\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[22,24,54],"class_list":["post-1386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roberts-posts","tag-communications","tag-conflict","tag-jay-rosen"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}