Is Donald Trump Good for Journalism?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 14 February 2017
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
President Trump has made no secret of his contempt for news organizations, stating that the media are "among the world's most dishonest people". He has described The New York Times as "failing", The Wall Street Journal as “a pile of garbage” and CNN as a “terrible organization” responsible for “fake news". The BBC? “There’s another beauty.” The President has made statements and assertions which are false. He uses Twitter to speak directly to the American people. His combative press secretary Sean Spicer said he plans to “hold the press accountable”. All this seems like bad news for what many Trump supporters call – derisively – the “mainstream media”. But might the opposite be true? Might Donald Trump, in fact, be good for journalism? That’s the question on The Inquiry this week.
(Photo: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump talks to reporters after the first prime-time presidential debate, Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland, Ohio. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thanks for downloading the inquiry. |
| 0:02.0 | President Trump's press secretary strides into the briefing room, |
| 0:09.0 | looking a little shorter than normal. |
| 0:12.0 | He grips the lectern with both hands, |
| 0:14.4 | glares at the reporters seated in rows before him. This is a parody, but it somehow |
| 0:20.0 | feels like it could be real. Now I want to begin today by apologizing on behalf of you to me. |
| 0:30.0 | For how you have treated me these last two weeks and that apology is not accepted. |
| 0:38.4 | This Saturday Night Live spoof of Sean Spicer, Chief Spokesman at the White House, is a hit. |
| 0:45.3 | I saw it appear in my social media newsfeed several times over one weekend. |
| 0:50.0 | 20 million people have watched it online. Like all good satire, it's funny because it feels |
| 0:56.2 | almost true, reflecting a White House that seems to have declared war on the press. |
| 1:02.0 | There's been a lot of talk in the media about the responsibility to hold Donald Trump accountable. |
| 1:06.0 | And I'm here to tell you that it goes two ways. |
| 1:08.0 | We're going to hold the press accountable as well. |
| 1:11.0 | That's the real press secretary speaking to real journalists. Some of the |
| 1:17.2 | most important media institutions in the US have been repeatedly attacked |
| 1:21.7 | by Donald Trump before and since he won the presidency. |
| 1:26.0 | He's described CNN as |
| 1:28.0 | The New York Times as |
| 1:31.0 | The failing New York Times. |
| 1:32.0 | We haven't escaped either. |
| 1:34.0 | BBC, it's another beauty. |
... |
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