Elite Journalism Faces a Crisis as Fear and Favor Undermine Integrity in 2024
The single biggest, and most consequential, crisis of 2024 is how some elite journalists failed to do their work without fear or favor. This behavior is not new, but the consequences now are greater.
For example, in February 2016, less than nine months before the presidential election, CBS Corporation CEO Les Moonves told an investment conference that Donald Trump’s candidacy “may not be good for America, but it’s good for CBS.” That confession of cravenness was surprising at the time. But no longer.
Throughout 2024 we saw the shrinkage of once-great journalistic institutions. We saw sane-washing of Trump’s nonsense, and hyper scrutiny of every slip of the tongue by Kamala Harris. As Van Jones described on CNN after the presidential debate – Trump got to be lawless, but Harris had to be flawless.
Just before the election the owners of both the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times spiked endorsements of Kamala Harris that were ready to be published. Neither newspaper published an endorsement. Both newspapers saw departure of both staff and readers.
The day after the election, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos posted an obsequious tweet on X: “Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory. No nation has bigger opportunities. Wishing @realDonaldTrump all success in leading and uniting the America we all love.”
In early December legal analyst Harry Litman resigned from the Los Angeles Times after 15 years as a contributor. He wrote in his Substack column, “My resignation is a protest and visceral reaction against the conduct of the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, to force the paper, over the forceful objections of his staff, into a posture more sympathetic to Donald Trump. Those moves can’t be defended as the sort of policy adjustment papers undergo from time to time, and that an owner, within limits, is entitled to influence. Given the existential stakes for our democracy that I believe Trump’s second term poses, and the evidence that Soon-Shiong is currying favor with the President-elect, they are repugnant and dangerous.”
Ten days after the election the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, who had been fierce critics of Donald Trump, made a pilgrimage to Mar A Lago to bend a knee to Trump. The blowback was sudden and intense. Viewership, already down since the election, dropped another 10 percent and continues to decline. Former CNN Washington bureau chief Frank Sesno, now a professor at George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, said, “They have portrayed themselves as bastions of integrity standing up to a would-be dictator. What the followers see is the daily procession of people on the show constantly talking about the evils of Donald Trump and then Joe and Mika show up and have high tea with the guy.”
Several weeks later, former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum was on Morning Joe to discuss an article he had written in The Atlantic about Trump’s approach to foreign policy. Before he could talk about it, he was asked about news stories regarding Defense Secretary designate Pete Hegseth, in particular that Hegseth had a significant drinking problem and had gone on the air as a Fox News weekend host smelling of alcohol. Before providing a serious response, he quipped, “Well, just given what one sees on camera, if you’re too drunk for Fox News, you’re very, very drunk indeed.”
During the break, a producer scolded Frum through his earpiece and directed him to not repeat the criticism of Hegseth or Fox News. After a second segment, Frum was directed to leave the studio. Then co-host Mika Brzezinski spoke into the camera: “A little bit earlier in this block there was a comment made about Fox News, in our coverage about Pete Hegseth and the growing number of allegations about his behavior over the years and possible addiction to alcohol or issues with alcohol. The comment was a little too flippant for this moment that we’re in. We just want to make that comment as well. We want to make that clear. We have differences in coverage with Fox News, and that’s a good debate that we should have often, but right now I just want to say there’s a lot of good people who work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth, and we will want to leave it at that.”
Later that day Frum published an account of what happened in The Atlantic, where he is a staff writer. He said, “It is a very ominous thing if our leading forums for discussion of public affairs are already feeling the chill of intimidation and responding with efforts to appease.”
Yale University historian Timothy Snyder advises on how to prevent the demise of democracy and the rise of tyranny. The first two lessons from his book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century are:
Do Not Obey in Advance.
Defend Institutions.
The institution of journalism is essential to hold those in power accountable. It is an institution worth defending. But it needs to take the initiative to defend itself. There are many elite journalists who are holding themselves to a high standard of independence. But many are not, nor are some of the owners of the elite news outlets. They need to grow a spine.
David Frum’s Atlantic column about his Morning Joe experience was headlined, “The Sound of Fear On Air.” His closing admonition is a lesson for journalists and those of us who expect better from some journalists: “I do not write to scold anyone; I write because fear is infectious. Let it spread, and it will paralyze us all. The only antidote is courage. And that’s infectious, too.”
