Click here for an article by Digby at Hullabaloo entitled "Demanding a show of power," where she reproduces excerpts from a series of 20 tweets by Jay Rosen, professor of journalism at NYU. Click here for another Digby article, entitled "How bad is it likely to get by Jay Rosen," subtitled "A tweetstorm about Trump's relationship with the press."
Here are Rosen's tweets:
1/ For those asking "how bad is it likely to get?" for the American press as a check on power, things to look for in the next 6-8 months...
2/ Already in gear: Trump loyalists (Jeffrey Lord is the model) recruited into the press as a gaudy show of balance. [Here Rosen links to an article in The Washington Post, by Paul Farhi, entitled "Mainstream media puts out the call for pro-Trump columnists."]
3/ There, the implied message from journalism to the Trump forces (the government + his core supporters) is: "Don't hurt us, we'll be good!"
4/ "Don't hurt us, we'll be good" is also a subtext when the report is accusation-driven rather than evidence-based. [Here Rosen links to his own article at Storify, entitled "Evidence-based vs. accusation-driven reporting."]
5/ From Trump a steady flow of easy-to-check lies as both a show of power and to cast the press in the role of petty but hateful antagonist.
6/ Ugly attacks on individual journalists who somehow provoke POTUS and his troll army online will intensify. But here a thing to watch for—
7/ The cabinet, GOP office holders and opinion leaders. Do they join in these attacks? Or is it just the tip and the base of the pyramid?
8/ When you can't tell what's going on — when listening harder generates more noise and attention = confusion — then you know it's working.
9/ It's not that we won't see big investigations and spectacular exposés. We will. They will serve as rocket fuel for the political divide.
10/ The assault on a common world of fact, the "we create our own reality" thing. Of that we are just at the beginning. It will get worse.
11/ You will know if I'm being alarmist when the first leak investigation comes— and it will come. Here is what I want to warn you about...
12/ Someone in government who can't live with what's happening will do what such people have always done: leak a 'big story' to the press.
13/ Most of these stories will be burned as fuel in the culture war, adding to Trump's power rather than "damaging" him in any way, BUT...
14/ ... a leak will unfold that enrages Trump. He will demand a show of power. And the full force of the government will be brought to bear.
15/ DOJ guidelines (which aren't laws) and norms in government that said 'tread carefully around the press'— these will vanish overnight.
16/ Picture, say, @Fahrenthold on trial for espionage. GOP leaders and office holders complicit. Culture war exploding around the trial...
17/ It's an obscene image. I hope it never happens. I'm not trying to be lurid or provocative. Just descriptive of conditions in place now.
18/ I guess the point I want to underline most is: the situation is way beyond just finding and publishing hard-hitting or critical stories.
19/ The problem is not at the level "how to cover Trump," but how to recover conditions in which anything journalists do makes a difference.
20/ I don't think we have any answers to that. One thing I do know: "Don't hurt us, we'll be good!" won't save you. Winter is coming. END
Scary stuff.
I should add that in addition to Rosen's tweetstorm, Digby's article at Hullabaloo goes on to include a related article she had posted a week earlier at Salon, which goes into considerable depth about the fraught relationship between Hillary and the FBI, especially Director "J. Edgar" Comey and the FBI/Giuliani connection.
Digby is one of the best, most insightful writers on the Internet. Check out her stuff at Hullabaloo.
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