In an examination into how the press should be treating Donald Trump's 2024 presidential run after he incited the Jan. 6 insurrection, one former Republican Party campaign consultant claimed the press hasn't learned its lesson and that the former president is more dangerous than ever.
According to the Guardian's David Smith, there are serious questions that need to be answered after CNN decided to host a town hall with Trump — scheduled for Wednesday this week — coming so soon after the former president was indicted in a Manhattan courtroom.
CNN, under the new leadership of Chris Licht, has been facing a deluge of criticism for giving Trump a forum, with the Guardian's Smith writing that it "as a marriage of convenience: an ailing network looking to boost ratings and a disgraced 76-year-old candidate seeking rehabilitation."
Former GOP campaign consultant Tara Setmayer, a frequent critic of the former president, stated that CNN has failed to learn the lesson of the past six years.
"It’s clear to me that CNN and many other mainstream media outlets have not learned their lessons from covering Trump in 2016,” she remarked. This, in my opinion, is once again giving him legitimacy at a time when he is more extreme, more out of control and his lies are more dangerous than ever.”
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She added, "It seems as though the political media cannot quit him. Treating Donald Trump as though he is just like any other regular political candidate is a huge strategic mistake. It normalizes his crazy and that’s partially how we got here in the first place. It is 2016 political Groundhog Day.”
Fairleigh Dickinson University government and politics professor Dan Cassino agreed.
“I would hope that there are lessons to be learned about not carrying non-news events live, not treating every speech from a candidate as being important. Fact-checking is impossible if you’re showing fully live; showing it in pieces where there’s something newsworthy, and fact-checking the spot, is certainly a better idea," he explained before adding. "The news doesn’t have to always report every allegation that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth. The biggest disservice that the news organizations did to the country in 2016 was to report breathlessly about the investigation of Hillary Clinton that turned out wasn’t anything. It takes a little to do proper fact-checking or to put things in context."
With that in mind, Setmayer admitted that she fears CNN won't be fact-checking Trump during the town hall, telling the Guardian, "within the absolute dumpster fire CNN has become in the Chris Licht era. It’s clear that the new ownership of CNN has an agenda to appeal to Trump voters at the expense of quality journalism.”
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