Is the political press better prepared to cover the weaponization of race and national origin in 2020

than it was in 2016? I'm Brian Stelter and this is the Reliable Sources Podcast. That question comes from my guest

this week. It's been a very disturbing week for the United States. Certainly if you've

been watching the news, reading the news,

tweeting the news, this has been a very uncomfortable week with President Trump bringing issues

of race and xenophobia right to the front of the national

news radar where frankly it cannot be ignored.

And I think too often journalists do try to ignore some of these issues.

So let's have some blunt talk about how the press approaches one of the most important subjects

of all.

When the president is posting racist tweets, when he's allowing hateful

chance at rallies, what is our role? How do we stay reliable sources? My guest today is award-winning journalist and

author for I Chadea. She's covered every presidential election since 1996.

She's hosted NPR's news and notes. She's been a political analyst here at CNN. And in 2016

she published the book The Epistotic Career How to Thrive at Work in the Age of Disruption.

Friday, thanks for joining me. Brian, I'm so glad to be here.

One of the many reasons I wanted to speak with you is because you wrote an essay in 2016,

the call to whiteness that I think showed us where we were going in some cases in this in

this Trump age. There's a lot to talk about but I want to start with your tweet

that I quoted at the very beginning. Is the political press better prepared to cover this in 2020 than it was in 2016?

Do you have a sense of the answer yet?

I think the answer is yes but only somewhat. I was a field reporter who also used

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