Presidential Theater and its Patrons

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Because Donald Trump keeps violating the norms of the Presidency, mainstream journalists tend to write their own narratives rather than report on his.  If Trump truly wants “good press,” he will need to get beyond defensive jeremiads.

President Trump seems remarkably inept at using the rhetorical tools available to him.  He thinks small using social media rants when he could be projecting the aspirations for his administration.  Because he keeps violating the norms of the Presidency, journalists tend to write their own narratives rather than merely paraphrase these defensive jeremiads.

And so we are at an impasse where the President is threatening to pull back from daily briefings.  He’s right to be concerned. As they stand they are defensive affairs, bereft of details on new ideas and proposals. Functionally they are cross-examination sessions, with the press asking and too rarely receiving basic information. Little wonder they are now covered “live” not only by cable news; there are also streamed by online news sources as well. As things stand, covering the Trump administration is like living next to a highway intersection where this is a fender-bender several times a day.  It’s hard to look away.

In truth, news is rarely made at the site of what was once the White House swimming pool, even while the networks hype the daily confrontations.  Reporters fill the cramped press space , hanging on every syllable and angry correction issued from the defensive Press Secretary, Sean Spicer.  They would like clarity on some of the ambiguities that have accumulated in the last 24 hours.  Like all press secretaries, Spicer is usually determined to be as creative with the truth and non-committal as possible.  He’s also become comfortable issuing his own warnings on how the press should be doing their job.

To be sure, it can’t be much fun to be in Spicer’s shoes.  His boss can change his mind faster than a quarterback trying to recover from a busted play.

As things stand, covering the Trump administration is like living next to a highway intersection where this is a fender-bender several times a day.  It’s hard to look away.

So how should the press respond to a president that saves key opinions and grand gestures for himself?   It’s probably not by sitting in the White House press room.  The white house beat is a journalistic irony.  It typically goes to a reporter as a reward.  And yet it means functioning in a small and restricted space with access to only very guarded sources.  Like a musician who has landed a long-term job playing in the pit of a broadway show, the work is admirably steady.  Any number of competitors would like the gig.  But it can be professionally numbing.

It’s worth remembering that one of America’s most iconic reporters, I.F. Stone, made it a hallmark of his journalism to not sit through formal press briefings and most other presidential events.  He was more likely to spend time engaged in close reading of an agency report. Stone was a print journalist.  He felt no urgency to find interesting pictures. He didn’t have to be present for the “show.”  He could write about ideas, policy, and the merits of different approaches without waiting for a leader to mention the subject.

Every good journalist carries the genes of an investigative reporter like Stone.  We and they just have to get beyond the empty theatrics.

Trump is a showman, a performance artist.  Journalists are going to have to become smarter to learn what is really going on.

This kind of digging lives on with news gatherers like Pro-Publica, Mother Jones, Politico, and some of the nation’s biggest and revived newspapers.  Think of the recent “Best Picture” Oscar winner, Spotlight (2015), which recreated the meticulous digging that allowed reporters at the Boston Globe to challenge official church narratives on peodophiles still being protected. Press conferences could have never given the people of Boston what they needed to know.

Trump is a showman, a performance artist. Journalists are going to have to become smarter in covering the Presidency if they want to know what is going on.  Listening to him or his surrogates is not apt to yield much insight into the rationales for government actions.

Luckily, as the saying goes, Washington is the only ship of state that leaks from the top.  There seems to be no shortage of informed senior level sources in the Administration who can help journalists understand the thinking of the Trump Administration.  But we will have to give up our fascination with, among other things, the matinee sideshow  of magical thinking that is the daily White House briefing.

I once wrote a book on politics and theater (Center Stage, 2007).  At the time it made sense because so many politicos and journalists clearly wanted to master and manage news in an entertainment-dominated environment. Yet that perspective is now too facile; the national’s capital must be more than just another center for the performing arts.  Leadership needs to include the mastery of leadership skills:  conciliation, a head for details and social effects, an interest in consultation with others, and the grace to know when not to speak.  A President that touts his success as a reality tv star needs to get serious if his administration is to be a match for the quick studies in the national press.

Parting Thoughts

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Communication is not done with any of us, nor can we be finished with it.  It will have its way with us for the remainder of our days. 

These are the weeks when the nation launches another cadre of college graduates into the world.  The annual ritual marks an important milestone for them and their parents.  Most welcome the day; but I can sense that for others it comes with some trepidation.  Graduates are given a map that is ambiguous. With a mix of joy and uncertainty some move on to jobs, perhaps a lazy summer at the shore, graduate school, or  back to the shelter of their old bedrooms.  No thanks to our politicians, they enter a world that is far from the stable platform they might have imagined back in high school.

When I graduated from the leafy outdoor theater at a college in California things were not that different. True, the Civil War was over.  Rails had finally been joined at Promontory Point in Utah. And we were getting spoiled by the comforts of indoor plumbing.

With all of its uncertainties, the frequently rampaging river of American life obscures what we thought would be clearer pathways.

In actual fact, the stormy year of 1968 held out the same kind of outstretched hand of opportunity, but we also knew that thorns were concealed in the other. Then, the Vietnam War threatened to be my generation’s next experiment in communal living.  And that was only one reason the nation faced doubts that stained its collective soul.  Our cities had been battlegrounds.  A president, his brother and Dr. King had all been killed by assassins. Racial justice was still in the distant future. What other options were there but to draw on youthful reserves of optimism and move on, comforted in the possibility of marriage, a good job, or perhaps escaping deeper into academia.

With all of its uncertainties, the frequently rampaging river of American life obscures what we thought would be clearer pathways.  That’s especially true for young adults in the arts and humanities.  Even so, I think anyone who has become a student of communication has a little bit of an edge, but only an edge.  In truth, communication is everybody’s business.

When I have the chance, I usually offer some version of this idea in a parting comment to the seniors graduating from our program:

When you begin to think about it, your degree in this subject carries burdens. This isn’t a static discipline you learn and then move on. There really isn’t such a thing as complete mastery of the arts of connecting with others. Like all of us, most of you will spend most your days in hot pursuit of rewards for changing the thinking of others. This may require acts of creation, education, interpretation, explanation, persuasion, justification, reporting, narration or defense. To be sure, all of these efforts can be taxing. And listening to others do the same can turn mastery of the tools of everyday discourse into a life-long enterprise. This is true for all of us, whether or not we have chosen to study communication formally.

Over time college graduates sometimes abandon in life what they studied in college. But that will not be true for you.  Communication is not done with any of us, nor can we ever be done with it. It will have its way with us for the remainder of our days. Over a lifetime of relations with others our abilities to connect will sometimes open doors and occasionally not be enough to keep them from closing. We will often wonder what we might have done to tame the forces that create barriers. 

So, as the cliché has it, we must embrace even an uncertain future: to be ready to find whatever communication resources we can to make friends out of strangers.