NC State’s School of Public and International Affairs hosted a talk Wednesday evening about Donald Trump’s campaign to discredit the media.
The speech was given by Jay Rosen, a professor at New York University and author of the journalism blog PressThink, and focused on the effects of the current political atmosphere on the media.
At a meeting before the event, Rosen spoke about how he began his blog in 2003 after hearing from a student about the value of the online communities blogs form. After researching the format for a year, he asked NYU’s journalism program to create a blog themed around journalism.
“No other academics did it,” Rosen said, in reference to generating a following on social media. “I was one of the first journalism professors to have a blog.”
He discussed the importance of social media in connecting directly with the public and their concerns about the media. Rosen spoke about the freedom that his blog gave him, in comparison to writing for the Columbia Journalism Review, as he no longer had to ask journalists to publish his critiques of journalism. He said he enjoyed the ability to speak directly to an audience.
A segment of the talk discussed the unique challenges of covering President Trump for the media.
“The president of the U.S., at the top of the social hierarchy, is every day trying to teach Americans not only not to trust the media but that it is a corrupt profession,” Rosen said. “That’s the point of this campaign, to make Trump the center of his supporters’ information about Trump.”
Rosen said that the decline of the local press, newsrooms trying to boost their traffic so they can make money from digital traffic and the homogeneity and coastal concentration of the journalism profession are all factors that have contributed to the distrust of the media.
Rosen discussed the role of news platforms like Facebook and Google.
“There is no editor-in-chief of Facebook,” Rosen said. “We have more and more power in the media system being sucked up by the platforms, but the platforms don’t want to be responsible for wielding that power.”
Rosen also gave tips for journalists and the news industry in rebuilding their image.
“A much easier way for people in journalism to regain trust is to say here’s where I’m coming from… but here’s what I learned from my reporting,” Rosen said. “When their reporting is attacked, they should respond by showing in very close detail why these criticisms are wrong. Or if they aren’t wrong, apologize.”
The talk concluded with a question and answer section, where students asked Rosen for his perspective on topics related to the topic of Trump and the media.
Amanda Owens, a fifth-year studying political science, attended the talk and participated in the question and answer.
“I asked about the impact of YouTubers and their ability to basically become amateur sources of news, especially for young people,” Owens said. “I was also interested in the solutions he offered, and I think YouTubers are implementing these.”
Rosen discussed the democratic development of YouTube and how accessible it is to all who would like to participate in freedom of the press.
“I feel like I got the impression that academics who are looking at this situation are as concerned as regular people about how Trump is discrediting the media,” Owens said.
Jay Rosen, professor of journalism at New York University and media critic, speaks in his lecture "Trump's Campaign to Discredit the Media" held in Dabney Hall Wednesday. "It's hard to have a fact-based debate when the leader of the free world, the president of the United States, doesn't care whether what he's saying is true," said Rosen. Rosen is also the writer and editor of PressThink, a blog in which he provides essays and criticisms, among other things, about journalism in the digital age.
