As a journalist, I watched with great interest how the national media covered the unprecedented arraignment of former President Donald Trump. As a citizen, some of the decisions left me unsatisfied.
After I wrote last week about removing the mugshot of Walter Cole, better known as Darcelle, from OregonLive, I received several queries about how we would handle the then-expected police booking photo of Trump.
“Good precursor to the coming week. So, how will you decide on the expected mug shot of President Trump? I can’t wait to hear the justification for this one. I’ll be waiting,” one reader wrote.
For background, remember that in Oregon the release of such mugshots is restricted. But even before that legal limitation imposed by the Legislature, The Oregonian/OregonLive had made it a practice to avoid mugshots except in rare instances.
One of those circumstances was when the mugshot was inherently newsworthy. My response: “If New York releases the mugshot (which is far from certain), I suspect every paper in America will publish it. As I said when we announced our new practice with mugshots, we will still publish ‘when the mugshot itself is the story.’ That is undeniably true when a former president is booked on criminal charges.”
New York, it turns out, rarely releases booking photos and Trump was not subjected to one.
Another reader perceived an inconsistency with our quick publication of the news of Trump’s indictment on OregonLive, seeing bias in favor of President Joe Biden. When readers ask why they cannot find X, Y or Z national news story on the site, I respond that we are primarily a local website. We post national and world news as we can and as the news requires.
“Amazing quick OregonLive coverage of ‘national news’ normally ignored. (Unless good for Biden, bad for GOP),” the reader wrote.
I responded that the indictment of a former president was not business as usual. To my mind, it’s disingenuous to try to ascribe bias to rapid publication of such unprecedented news.
Similarly, it’s an obvious front-page story. I regularly tell readers that we favor local news on the front page. We want to showcase news and information readers can’t get anywhere else. That’s our preferred strategy.
But we also know readers want The Oregonian to serve up the major news of the day. And when major news for the country or the world occurs, we give it prominent play.
The scene of former President Donald Trump at the defense table as five media outlets were allowed to shoot still photos. (Andrew Kelly/Pool Photo via AP)AP
Another interesting aspect of the Trump coverage was the stilted photo session inside the courtroom. The judge had allowed just five media organizations to come in and take still photos once Trump was inside. He then made the photojournalists leave the courtroom before the arraignment occurred and required the reporters who remained to leave cell phones and the like behind.
The net result was the public had no reliable way to know what was occurring until it was over.
That likely would not have happened in Oregon. We have long allowed still and video cameras to record court proceedings in almost every case. If a judge wants to bar such coverage, she has to make specific findings of fact on the record.
The same rule that allows cameras also lets journalists communicate by email from inside the courtroom or tweet updates, so long as they have the court’s permission.
The last element of coverage that interested me was the television networks that chose not to broadcast Trump’s first live remarks after his arraignment in full and in real time. NBC, ABC and CBS cut away to correct false statements.
“We have to interrupt here, because the president made a number of false statements, including the notion that there has been fraudulent voting,” said Lester Holt, the “NBC Nightly News” anchor, as reported by the New York Times. “There has been no evidence of that.”
Television journalists have long struggled with the question of how to cover Trump’s statements when they are patently false. CNN, which stayed with his remarks longer, ran banners across the screen rebutting his baseless claims.
Although we can live-stream events on OregonLive, our primary journalism is through words. That gives us the relative luxury of taking time to think through what goes in the article and what does not. It also allows us to fact check in close proximity to any untruthful statements.
The wire service articles we rely upon for world and national news typically don’t belabor specifics anymore, but simply characterize what was said. The Washington Post, in its wrapup of Monday night’s speech, said Trump lashed out in his remarks. Then, it added, in a perfunctory way, “Many of Trump’s statements about the case were not factually supported.”
Networks no doubt are watching the Dominion Voting Systems libel lawsuit against Fox News and calculating the consequences – both in terms of legal jeopardy and credibility – of spreading claims they know are false.
As a citizen, the entire issue is frustrating to me because I wish there was a better way to balance both objectives: give people full information about a historic moment but also work to avoid amplifying false information. CNN’s approach came close, although it, too, eventually cut away from the speech.
There is obvious tension there. But, at the end of the day, our first and highest obligation is to the truth.
