Trumpocalypse Now

It's happening.

After years of warnings about what Donald Trump would do if he returned to power, the president is dismantling institutions, warping law enforcement agencies, seeking retribution on his critics, treating undocumented immigrants with cruelty, imposing and threatening seismic tariffs, and openly musing about seizing foreign territories. The American experiment is convulsing before our eyes.

And yet, you wouldn't quite realize it from the tone of the news coverage.

To be clear, reporters on the battlefield are doing what they can as they are besieged with the chaos that is defining Trump's second term, all while grappling with layoffs and cuts rippling through the media industry. You can find well-reported articles across the news landscape, in addition to pieces fact-checking Trump and his administration. All of that is just a Google search away.

The news generals back in the command center, however, are largely abdicating their duties. It’s not that their outlets are not covering Trump's second term — it's that leadership is failing to give the orders that would present the reporting about the extreme actions emanating out of Washington as an outright emergency that will have far-reaching consequences on American life and democracy.

Most news bosses aren’t demanding screaming headlines in monster-sized font. They aren’t expanding the evening news beyond the allotted 30 minutes. And they are allowing television shows to remain married to irresponsible "both sides" oriented panels, as if one of those sides isn't upending the rule of law, shattering longstanding norms, and threatening the country's bedrock principles.

Abnormal news is being plugged into a system aimed at delivering normal headlines. Take CNN, for example. The red tab on its chyrons has merely stated "FIRST 100 DAYS," framing the onslaught of drastic action gushing out of the White House as part of the early period of a normal presidency. Wouldn't "AMERICA IN CRISIS" be more apt, given the very stories the network itself is reporting on?

Consider just some of those stories:

Each of those stories would typically warrant special coverage. Yet, despite the sheer volume of action Trump is taking, news leaders are largely refusing to adapt. Instead of recognizing this as a moment that demands a different approach, they are sticking to the usual framework of delivering the news. There are some exceptions, of course. But, broadly speaking, the response has been underwhelming.

Imagine if mainstream news organizations covered a looming natural disaster in the way it has covered Trump. A category five hurricane barrels toward the Florida coast, but instead of wall-to-wall coverage warning people to seek shelter and evacuate, the local news stuck to its regular newscasts as if it were just going to rain a little more than usual. Instead of shocking the citizenry into paying attention, news executives simply printed headlines that read, "Strong winds and rain expected." Meanwhile, during the television coverage, the same outlets allowed known disinformation artists to hijack panels with absurd claims, misleading the public into believing everything was being overblown by an overzealous press corps.

That would obviously be deeply irresponsible, but that is precisely what most of the news media is doing now. Trump, along with allies such as Musk, are openly dismantling the U.S. government and threatening the global order. And yet, the major media outlets are largely suck in the same journalistic rhythms as before. Political journalists write up stories and news anchors read alarming words from teleprompters, but the institutions as a whole are failing to sound an audible alarm that arrests the public’s attention.

None of what is transpiring out of Washington is business as usual, a fact that has rendered the normal formats as simply insufficient. News organizations need to rethink how they are approaching this story — not necessarily in the reporting, but in the presentation, the urgency, and the broader storytelling. It’s time to break out those six-column front page headlines and interrupt regular programming with special broadcast news reports! Throw out the regular schedule and deploy Anderson Cooper to anchor special dayside coverage! This doesn’t require that much creativity. But the stakes should be made unmistakably clear. The American public should feel that something profoundly different and unsettling is unfolding. This is no ordinary first 100 days.

The news media has shown it is fully capable of delivering this type of coverage during other events. Think about how it covers natural disasters and terror attacks. Think about how it covered the Covid-19 pandemic, with unflinching ‘round the clock special coverage. There are some moments so immense, the press takes extra steps to signal the gravity of it all to the public. We are living through such a moment.

Media executives need not fret about being the boy who cried wolf. The wolf is now in the barn and mauling the livestock. The task at hand is no longer about warning the public about what could happen. It is about telling them what is happening. Trump is ruling exactly how he promised. It’s time for the media bosses to respond accordingly.