NYU Professor Jay Rosen provided a complete assessment of a failed news media this morning on Morning Joe explaining a truth by using a response from Chuck Todd which he said showed Todd as naive and by inference the rest of the news media.
NYU Professor Jay Rosen challenges Chuck Todd on the press bubble
Chuck Todd may not like Professor Jay Rosen’s assessment of his naivete, but the professor hit the nail on the head and just maybe all should listen.
Willie Geist asked Professor Jay Rosen how must the media handle itself in a climate where Trump was successful in making them untrustworthy to many. The professor’s response was spot on.
“They have to keep doing their job,” Professor Jay Rosen said. “They have to keep doing their job. They can’t stop reporting uncomfortable facts. But at the same time, journalists have to reconnect with their public by listening better to what’s bothering them than Trump is, than the political system is. And re-engage, not at a superficial level like on Facebook and Twitter, but deeply understand what the trouble in the country are better than the political system does so that they can hold Trump to account; not only for what he said but for improving the country, addressing the problems in people’s lives. If journalists can do that, then maybe they can get back on the road to trust.”
Joe Scarborough pointed out that most of the press called everything wrong. That utterance was an understatement. The press is in a state where they are governed by talking points, mostly from the Right. Those in the news media doing real investigative work get very little exposure commensurate with the seriousness of their research.
The professor later chimed in with some prescient statements.
“A deeper problem though is not just bad predictions,” the professor said. “That was terribly damaging. But the press has a model of political coverage in which it is trying to figure out what the political class is doing. It is very attached to the political class. And when the political class is in itself dropping in trust, then political journalism has a problem.”
Scarborough then told the dirty little secret we all know. The press and the political class are living in the same bed, the same bubble. They go to the same parties. Their kids go to the same schools, etc. etc.
The professor then gave an example of the naivete of the press living in that bubble by recounting a conversation with Meet the Press’ Chuck Todd.
“I once asked Chuck Todd in an interview for my blog if he considered himself part of the political class,” Rosen said. “He said, ‘No. That is impossible.’ But id you understand the institution of Meet the Press and how it works within Washington, that is kind of a naive view.”
Enough said. Sadly, mic drop.