How to Cover Racist Tweets

Radio Atlantic

The Atlantic

Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 19 July 2019

⏱️ 45 minutes

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Summary

On Sunday, President Trump told four members of Congress to “go back” to the countries “from which they came.” Journalists have spent the week working through how to discuss what is a textbook racist statement aimed at four congresswomen who—besides all being American citizens—are all women of color. Newsrooms faced hard questions: Do you call the president a racist? How do you not call the president a racist? Do you give him the attention he wants, and how do you modulate that, contextualize it, explain it? Margaret Brennan, moderator of CBS’s Face the Nation, joins Isaac Dovere on this week’s Radio Atlantic to discuss how journalists are faring with these questions and what we can expect going into 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You! This is a week when we were all talking about one thing. President Trump's tweets.
0:14.0	Specifically,
0:15.0	I'm Isaac Dauver.
0:19.0	This was a week when we were all talking about one thing,
0:22.0	President Trump's tweets, specifically
0:24.8	his tweets that four Democratic Freshman Congresswomen should go back, as he put it, to where
0:29.5	they were from.
0:30.5	They're all American citizens, by the way, and three of the four were born here.
0:34.0	There are also all women of color.
0:36.0	Here in the Atlantic newsroom and in many other newsrooms around the country
0:40.0	moments like these prompt hard questions.
0:42.0	Do you call the president a racist? How do you
0:45.2	not call the president a racist? Do you give him the attention he wants? And how do you
0:49.5	modulate that? Contextualize it. Explain it. Margaret Brennan, the host of Face the Nation on CBS,
0:55.0	had to figure that out in real time last Sunday morning.
0:58.0	She was putting the final touches on her show right as the President's tweets landed
1:01.0	and had to decide then, and in the preparation for this
1:04.0	coming Sunday show how to handle it. She's a TV veteran she's interviewed the
1:08.6	president at length and covered other countries going through political crises.
1:12.1	Experience that brings her to this week with the covered other countries going through political crises.
1:12.8	Experience that brings her to this week with a distinctive perspective.
1:16.9	So we stopped by CBS's Washington Bureau on Friday
	...

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