Right Wing Media Tread Carefully Reporting on Tempestuous Trump
A Great Balancing Act
By Jon Friedman, July 7, 2023
The conservative media are trying, once again, to have their cake and eat it, too.
They have handed themselves a difficult task: Maintain their loyalty to former President Donald Trump – and court his zealous followers – while acting like responsible journalists who pursue the truth.
If the right-wing media wrote damning stories about Trump, they’d not only risk incurring his well-honed wrath. They’d also risk angering his flock of followers, a potentially fickle group who might then prefer to get their brand of information from a source that had expressed total fealty to the former president. That might result in reduced readership and advertising income.
This matters now because their attitudes and actions will give us an indication of how they will behave when the going gets tough. Their predicament will intensify as the 2024 presidential campaign officially gets underway with the first round of Republican candidates’ debates in August in Milwaukee.
The media were recently reminded of the sensitivity of their task during a Trump rally in South Carolina. U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s most vocal supporters, was nonetheless booed loudly on his home turf because the audience did not believe that Graham has been sufficiently obsequious to Trump. So, they booed.
The media will have a ruder awakening if the public deems them disloyal. The audience will turn away and find a different outlet. As if the media needed this reminder: Politics is a demanding business.
The situation now reminds me of what it must be like to be a beat reporter who is covering a professional sports team over an endless regular season, as a buildup to the time that really counts – the playoffs.
Christie the Sage
The right-wing media attempt to answer this challenge by wringing whatever drama they can extract from the early stages of the campaign. In a typical campaign, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie would have a hard time getting booked to appear on any of the cable news channels because he is so far behind the front-runner, Trump. Based on the polling, Christie is not a factor, and he may not even muster the necessary success to get himself on the debate stage.
And yet, Christie is treated like a sage during his television appearances. In June, Christie proved that he has the equivalent of type O blood (universal donor) when CNN made him the special guest during one of those made-for-TV town halls (Trump had gone on one several weeks earlier).
Yes, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is enlivening the drab Trump-DeSantis scrimmages by daring to pull on Trump’s cape as he runs down the shortcomings of his former partner in crime.
Whatever buzz that Christie supplies must be weighed alongside the reminder that he was once a member of Trump’s kitchen Cabinet.
Christie helped Trump get into battle-ready condition prior to Trump’s presidential debates versus Hillary Clinton in 2016. Christie played the part of Mrs. Clinton in a mock debate, which helped Trump polish his act.
Ultimately, it will be interesting to see which media outlets can carry off this balancing act most convincingly. Their relative success could go a long way in determining which one can gain the best access to Trump in the months ahead.
As Trump’s legal headaches mount, access could be a great asset for any media institution, as the world plays an endless parlor game of trying to gauge Trump’s mood, strategy and outlook.
But access won’t come easily. First, a media organization will have to master that tricky balancing act. The Flying Wallendas may have had it easier.
Jon Friedman wrote MarketWatch’s media column from 1999 to 2013 and has taught classes in journalism and other subjects at Stony Brook University. He has written three books and has been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Sunday Business Section, The New York Post, Esquire and Time.
Interested in more news about right-wing media curated especially for mainstream audiences? Subscribe to our free daily newsletter.
If the right-wing media wrote damning stories about Trump, they’d not only risk incurring his well-honed wrath. They’d also risk angering his flock of followers, a potentially fickle group who might then prefer to get their brand of information from a source that had expressed total fealty to the former president. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
