Trump's Funding Freeze and Your Beat
Top Story: Trump’s Chaos and Your Newsroom
Frozen funds. Unfrozen funds. Closed preschools. Shelters shuttered. Medicaid payments halted. Scratch that. Some of it…All of it…For now…Welcome to Trump 2.0 and the chaos that has already rained down on American cities and towns all across the country.
Covering this is likely to give a lot of reporters whiplash — and getting the right/accurate news to people is going to only get harder…And more confusing…And more stressful.
Some respected news organizations have thought long and hard about how to cover this next administration.
Others, not so much. Remember Joe Scarborough calling Trump Hitler. Then deciding…the guy’s not that bad.
But what about your news organization? Is there a plan? A focus? An intention?
If so, we’d love to hear about it.
And for those who aren’t getting that kind of support; here’s some tips on starting the conversation yourself.
How to Have Newsroom Conversations Around Trump Coverage
Why are we doing this? It’s important for newsroom around the country — with editors and reporters— to make a plan. And that plan ought to start with the Why? Why are we doing this; and what do we intend to achieve? Trump’s unprecedented threats to democracy are already impacting people you tell the news to. What do they need to know? How do you intend to tell them? And how are you going get your stories out there? The answers to those questions can only be answered when your newsroom establishes the why!
Get it in writing. Make sure whatever your newsroom decides is its Trump Era 2.0 mission, it gets put in writing. That way, when editors and reporters disagree about a quote, a phrase, an entire story idea — everyone has something to refer to. And we all know…those disagreements will be plentiful.
Watch Your Tone. A lot of the people you are telling the news to voted for Trump. And polls suggest they didn’t necessarily know what they were voting for. Nor did they believe that Trump’s stated plans — all laid out in Project 2025 — would come to fruition. Boy, were they wrong. How you share the bad news about what he plans to do really matters if your newsroom’s why is to get people to listen. Be careful not to sound alarmist. Apparently, that doesn’t work! Stick with the facts. Stick with moving stories about the impact on people in your community. Stick with who’s supporting this.
What he says or what he does? Trump and his people say a lot of stuff. That’s part of the Trump show. Do you report on this, or wait to report on the stuff he does? Maybe both? The answer to that…? You guessed it; it’s all about your newsroom why!
Does this remind you of anything? A lot of Trump’s rhetoric/tactics and the rhetoric/tactics coming out of the White House are scary because they are so much like the kind of rhetoric/tactics totalitarian strong men in other countries — and at other times — have traditionally used. It’s important to figure out ways to convey this to people, without seeming hyperbolic or opinionated. But if your why is to inform people of the threats Trump poses to democracy (aka their freedoms and their rights;) it's important you do let them know who else talks and acts like this...And again…Do it in a way people can hear.
In The News….
Republicans in North Carolina still trying to throw out those votes
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Our Staff
Executive Editor Kyle Spencer
Managing Editor Christen Gall
Our Board of Advisors
Alex Aronson, executive director of Court Accountability
David Armiak, research director for the Center for Media and Democracy
Maurice Cunningham, retired associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and author of Dark Money and The Politics of School Privatization.
Connor Gibson, founder of Grassrootbeer Investigations
Isaac Kamola, associate professor of political science at Trinity College, founder of Faculty First Responders and co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money, Manufacturing a Campus Culture War
Nancy MacLean, William H. Chafe distinguished professor of history and public policy at Duke University and author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
Ralph Wilson, founder of the Corporate Genome Project and co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money, Manufacturing a Campus Culture War
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