Michael Massing delivers many critiques of the state of American journalism, from what he sees as increasing rhetorical vitriol to an overwhelming focus on Donald Trump. He says that, in turn, the news media is failing to communicate important messages and opinions to the public.
No less striking than the negativity of the Trump coverage has been its volume. On June 9—the day after a press conference that Trump held before leaving for the G-7 meeting in Canada—the Times devoted the entire top half of its front page to the president, along with all or parts of six inside pages. On some days, The Washington Post has a dozen or more stories about Trump and Washington politics, compared with just one or two about the rest of the country. When White House communications director Hope Hicks resigned, the press spent days pondering the implications of this second-tier figure’s departure. When Trump waited 48 hours to post a tweet criticizing the Red Hen restaurant for refusing service to press secretary Sarah Sanders, the Times ran a detailed analysis of what the delay said about the president’s opinion of her.
[…]In the end, Trump is both the product and the servant of an entrenched system—one that news organizations generally shrink from challenging. Why is that? Because writing about the way things really work would endanger journalists’ access to sources? Because it would provoke an outcry from powerful people? Because it wouldn’t produce enough traffic? Or is it a result of the “Trump effect”? The preoccupation with the president has pushed aside many urgent stories, not the least of which are the economic and political realities that propelled his rise and that, if not fully covered and addressed, could prolong his stay in office.
Source: Journalism in the Age of Trump: What’s Missing and What Matters | The Nation