Fourth Estate: Trump shadow on news industry

During the first Trump administration, the biggest concern for many journalists was labels. Would they, or their news outlet, be called “fake news” or an “enemy of the people” by a president and his supporters?

They now face a more assertive President Donald Trump. In two months, a blitz of action by the nation's new administration  Trump, chapter two  has journalists on their heels.

Lawsuits. A newly aggressive Federal Communications Commission. An effort to control the press corps that covers the president, prompting legal action by The Associated Press. A gutted Voice of America. Public data stripped from websites. And attacks, amplified anew.

“It's very clear what's happening. The Trump administration is on a campaign to do everything it can to diminish and obstruct journalism in the United States," said Bill Grueskin, a journalism professor at Columbia University.

“It's really nothing like we saw in 2017," he said. “Not that there weren't efforts to discredit the press, and not that there weren't things that the press did to discredit themselves.”

Supporters of the president suggest that an overdue correction is in order to reflect new ways that Americans get information and to counter overreach by reporters. Polls have revealed continued public dissatisfaction with journalists — something that has been bedevilling the industry for years.

The tension between presidents and the Fourth Estate is nothing new — an unsurprising clash between desires to control a message and to ask probing, sometimes impertinent questions. Despite the atmosphere, the Republican president talks to reporters much more often than many predecessors, including Democrat Joe Biden, who rarely gave interviews.

An early signal that times had changed came when the White House invited newcomers to press briefings, including podcasters and friendly media outlets.

The AP was blocked from covering pool events in a dispute over Trump's renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, setting off a flurry of First Amendment concerns among press advocates and leading the administration to assert that the White House, not the press, should determine who questions him.

Two months before the administration took office, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who served under Republican President George W. Bush, had urged that changes be made.

“It's time to bring that (briefing) room in line with how readers and viewers consume the news in 2025,” Fleischer said in an interview. “They don't get their news from The Washington Post, The New York Times and the three networks anymore. They get their news from a myriad of sources.”

In practice, some newcomers have refreshingly tried to shed light on issues important to conservatives, instead of hostile attempts to play “gotcha” by the mainstream media, Fleischer said. There were also softballs, like when the Ruthless podcast asked press secretary Karoline Leavitt if reporters who questioned border policy were “out of touch.” The conservative Real America's Voice network tried to knock Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy off stride by asking why he wasn't wearing a suit in the Oval Office.

While the White House Correspondents' Association has protested the AP's treatment and efforts to upend tradition, it has been largely toothless. For more extensive discussions, the president and his team generally favour interviews with outlets that speak to his supporters, like Fox News.

The White House has also established a “Rapid Response 47” account on X to disseminate its views and attack journalists or stories it objects to. The feed's stated goals are supporting the president and “holding the Fake Media accountable.”

Trump has active lawsuits going against news outlets that displease him, such as CBS News for the way “60 Minutes” edited an interview with 2024 election opponent, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, or The Des Moines Register, for what turned out to be an inaccurate pre-election poll of Iowa voters.

Press advocates worry about the intimidation factor of lawsuits and investigations, particularly on smaller newsrooms. What stories will go unreported simply because it's not worth the potential hassle? “It has a very corrosive effect over time,” Grueskin said.

Worth watching, too, is a disconnect between newsrooms and the people who own them. Both the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post backed off endorsements of Harris last fall at the behest of the their owners, and Post owner Jeff Bezos attended Trump's inauguration.

Many newsrooms are notably not backing down from the challenge of covering the administration. “60 Minutes” has done several hard-hitting reports, the Atlantic has added staff and Wired is digging in to cover Elon Musk's cost-cutting.

“They're pulling at every thread they can find, no matter how tenuous, to try and undermine credible news organisations,” Grueskin said.

It is well organised. It is coming from multiple directions.

And it has been only two months.