The Media’s Big Trump Conundrum
*From the article: “News outlets that pride themselves on objectivity are struggling with how to characterize the racism and xenophobia of the Donald Trump Administration.” VL
By Shawn Rhea, Colorlines (5 minute read) 
On November 28 the Associated Press issued guidelines for how journalists should treat “alt-right,” a relatively new term that various White supremacists have been using in an effort to rebrand their old ideologies.
Left-leaning outlets as diverse as Jezebel, Slate and AlterNet have taken up the question. ThinkProgress went as far as to ban its use after the creator of the term, Richard Spencer, used a Nazi salute at the annual conference of his White supremacist National Policy Institute.
…[Y]ou might wonder what, if anything, distinguishes the alt-right from more hidebound racist movements such as the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan. The answer is very little, except for a bit of savvy branding and a fondness for ironic Twitter memes. [Richard] Spencer and his ilk are essentially standard-issue [W]hite supremacists who discovered a clever way to make themselves appear more innocuous — even a little hip.
These decisions come at a moment when news organizations are soul searching about how to accurately cover the Trump Administration, its policies and its supporters. Many are torn between reporting through the traditional, uncritical lens that supposedly leads to balanced work and shining an unsparing light on Trump’s regressive rhetoric and policies. Embracing a more critical style of reporting will be a significant pivot for news outfits that gave Trump and his supporters a lot of unedited air time and ink with little historical or present-day context during the election.
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Terminology is just one issue challenging such newsrooms. Trump has made it clear that he will use tactics such as limiting press access to the White House and suing reporters for libel to control the narrative. During the campaign, he famously banned outlets such as The Washington Post, Politico and The Huffington Post from covering his events. Recently, he held a closed-door convening with executives and reporters from top outlets for the purpose of castigating them.
Shawn Rhea is a Harlem, New York-based writer whose work is focused on social justice and healthcare issues.
[Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr]