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Tag: journalism
Judge Juan Merchan

How Trump's Hush-Money Trial Is Testing Mainstream Journalism

Monday was genuinely historic. For the first time since the nation was founded, a jury sat down to hear criminal charges against a man who once served as the nation’s highest executive. Despite months in which pundits had dismissed this case as the weakest of the criminal cases Donald Trump is facing, the prosecution got off to a powerful start, outlining for the jury Trump’s long history of scandal, cover-up, and playing fast and loose with legalities.

Judge Juan Merchan kept things moving quickly. Even though Monday was a half day to allow everyone to go home for the Passover holiday, the trial moved through opening statements from both sides and saw the first witness take the stand.

That first witness was David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer. Though Pecker was only on the stand for a few minutes on Monday before the shortened day was called to a halt, his testimony, along with the opening statement from prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, made clear that this case is not only going to be a challenge for Trump, it’s also going to be a challenge to journalism.

In his brief appearance Monday, Pecker was open about how the National Enquirer did business. As The Washington Post reports, Pecker described the process at the Enquirer using a term that makes many journalists at more reputable outlets sneer: “checkbook journalism.”

That is, to get the stories that decorated the paper’s lurid pages, Pecker and his colleagues at the National Enquirer simply took the very direct route of opening up the checkbook and paying for them. Compared to hiring investigative reporters and the associated resources of a solid newsroom, this can be a relatively inexpensive way to operate. And when it comes to juicy behind-the-scenes tales of globe-trotting celebrities, checkbook journalism may be the only way to get the stories otherwise hidden from the public.

As Pecker made clear, those checks were often cut to hotel workers, limo drivers, or other workers who stood around being socially invisible while celebrities were at play.

Paying for a story may seem morally questionable, and many schools of journalism would hold it unethical. But is it really that much more dubious than hiring Ronna McDaniel to provide news commentary, or populating your whole newsroom with former Trump staffers?

The stories served up by the National Enquirer are often designed to feed prurient interests, but there’s another form of journalism that may be far more destructive than writing a check to someone who very likely needs it. And a big hint at that kind of journalism also surfaced in the first morning of the trial.

Midway through Colangelo’s opening statement to the jury, New York Times crime reporter Jonah Bromwich was struck by a singular thought about the story of how Trump’s relationship with Stormy Daniels was kept out of the news.

For years, this story has been told by reporters with caveats and caution. So it’s really striking to hear Colangelo lay the hush money scheme directly at Trump’s feet, with perfect clarity. “It was election fraud, pure and simple,” Colangelo says bluntly.

That certainly is “striking.” And it absolutely begs the question of why reporters would have spent years tiptoeing around this story. Why did Colangelo’s statement seem so shocking when compared to other reporting on these same events?

Bromwich might want to ask that of the other New York Times reporter working from the courthouse on Monday, Maggie Haberman.

Haberman and her bosses at the Times might turn their noses up at the idea of breaking out a wallet for checkbook journalism, but they certainly seem to be open to even more damaging access journalism.

As The New Yorker reported in 2023, Haberman has long been Trump’s personal chronicler, regarded as a “safe” and “friendly” choice when Trump needed to add some faux dignity to some claim or event. Haberman could not only be counted on to edit events to prevent Trump from coming off too badly, but she saved up some of the juiciest events she witnessed, leaving them out of real-time reporting to later drop it in her book. That included withholding knowledge that Trump intended to stay in the White House after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.

Haberman was far from alone when it came to withholding critical information from the public. For example, ABC News' chief Washington correspondent, Jonathan Karl, did not mention a memo from former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows describing the whole scheme to undo Biden’s victory until Karl had a chance to drop that memo in his book nearly a year later.

The New York Times’ coverage of Monday’s court action includes its disdain for the kind of journalism practiced at the National Enquirer. In describing the catch-and-kill scheme Pecker created to protect Trump, the Times wrote, "In the world of tabloid journalism, where ethical lines are blurry, deciding what to publish and why is often a calculus that covers favors doled out and chits called in."

But how does that “blurry” world differ from the kind of access journalism practiced at The New York Times and other major news outlets? When a journalist is more interested in maintaining a source than delivering the truth, questions get pulled and hard facts are omitted. AsEditor & Publisher reported in 2021, even when a source lies to a reporter, the source is rarely dropped because reporters may feel they could need that source again in the future.

Bromwich found the story of Trump’s crimes so “striking” because prosecutors were doing what the Times is supposed to do, delivering a naked, straightforward accounting of the events without pulling punches or dropping in a charming little diner for folksy insights.

As CNN reported earlier this month, The New York Times seems to be fixated on polls about President Joe Biden’s age, while giving scant attention to Trump’s borrowed Hitler quotes or his desire to be a dictator. Few major media outlets seem to be interested in critically reporting the violent rhetoric Trump uses at his campaign rallies or the way his speeches frequently dwindle into gibberish.

And as theSan Francisco Chronicle said about Haberman squirreling away vital information:

In this instance, if Trump was so unstoppered he had started to conjure a coup, that’s news with a half-life of right now. Whistles must be blown, play stopped, the 25th Amendment consulted, Mike Pence invited in to measure the Oval Office for new drapes. At once.

Maybe the truth wouldn’t be so striking if the New York Times would report it more often.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Republicans Rely On Bad Journalism In Debt-Ceiling Extortion Campaign

Republicans Rely On Bad Journalism In Debt-Ceiling Extortion Bid

Republicans need the political press to do a lot of bad journalism in order to carry out their strategy of forcing through devastating spending cuts by leveraging the prospect of a calamitous default on U.S. debt. They need political journalists to produce wishy-washy “both sides” coverage that hides the party’s ultimate culpability and shields it from blame. And the latest coverage from The New York Times shows that their plan may already be working.

It shouldn’t be difficult to acknowledge that Republicans will be the ones at fault if the U.S. breaches the statutory limit on federal borrowing in June. Members of Congress of both parties routinely voted for clean debt limit hikes during Donald Trump’s presidency, which also saw record debt increases. But with Joe Biden in the White House, GOP leaders started saying last fall that they would require significant spending cuts – including to Social Security and Medicare – alongside further debt limit increases if their party won the House.

After they gained a narrow majority, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) reportedly pledged “to not raise the debt limit without major cuts” to secure the speakership. The party’s right-wing media allies are loudly cheering them on. House Republicans could, at any time, vote to prevent a global economic catastrophe, but they are refusing to do so unless Democrats give them something else they want.

And yet, here’s how the Timeshandled the GOP’s ransom demand in Friday’s The Morning newsletter:

The bad news: Democrats and Republicans are divided. House Republicans say they want to use a debt-limit increase — and the threat of default — as leverage to cut government spending. Top Democrats have likened the Republican stance to a hostage-taking situation. The sides can’t agree even on whether to negotiate.

Both sides, per the Times, apparently share the blame: The Republicans who are taking the global economy hostage, and the Democrats who are saying that Republicans are taking the global economy hostage rather than just paying their price.

That’s not the only such false equivalency in the piece. The Times put Republican hostage-taking when it controls a house of Congress and Democrats are in the White House alongside a protest vote Biden took as a senator in 2006, when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the White House. From the piece:

But that has changed over the past three decades. Republicans, in particular, have used the passage of bills increasing the limit as leverage to try to force spending cuts on Democratic administrations. Democrats, too, have used it as a political tool: In 2006, Joe Biden, then a senator, joined his Democratic colleagues in opposing a debt ceiling increase to protest the cost of tax cuts and the Iraq war.

The Times added:

A crucial ingredient in this brinkmanship is divided government. Raising the debt ceiling is less of a problem when the same party holds power in both chambers of Congress and the White House. But when the government is divided, it makes the current scenario possible: A Republican-controlled House threatens to block a debt-limit increase that Democrats who control the Senate and White House would like to pass.

But the problem isn’t divided government per se – Democratic Congresses have no issue raising the debt ceiling when a Republican is in the White House, as was the case in 2007-2008 and 2019-2020. The problem is that when the government is divided with Republicans in control of Congress and a Democrat in the White House, the Republicans engage in this reckless behavior.

If Republicans really want to slash spending – including for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid – that’s their right. There’s nothing preventing the party from spending the next two years talking about their plans in hopes of winning the White House and Senate and then executing them. Indeed, there’s nothing preventing them from spending the next two years talking about “critical race theory” and girls’ sports in hopes of winning the White House and Senate and then springing their plans on the public.

But they don’t seem interested in trying that, presumably for the same reason that unified Republican governments under Presidents Trump and George W. Bush didn’t lead to massive spending cuts – those cuts would be incredibly unpopular and would likely destroy the party’s political standing.

Instead, the GOP plan for cutting spending is to try to force the Democrats to agree to (maybe even propose) the cuts as the price to avert global economic catastrophe. That sounds insane when you write it out, so a big part of the strategy is trying to prevent the press from doing so. The party’s leaders and its propagandists are busy working the refs.


There’s no good reason for journalists to do their dirty work.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

If You Want Us To Help Prove Your Innocence, Start With This Checklist

If You Want Us To Help Prove Your Innocence, Start With This Checklist

The year 2022 closed out with many readers reaching out to me with cases that they think deserve more scrutiny. I’m flattered and I would like to help. But, on occasion, the outreach I receive is a little light on foundational documents.

I’m kicking off 2023 with a guide that anyone can use if they’re looking for help on a criminal case from a journalist or trying to help a prisoner reduce their sentence.

This is what you should do before and while seeking any journalist's assistance on a criminal case or post-conviction challenge.

Come correct: Collect all your information before reaching out: docket numbers, copies of court files (never walk out of court with original records; that’s a crime), lawyers’ names and all of their contact information (physical and email addresses as well as office telephone numbers and cell phone numbers).

All correspondence between the defendant/prisoner and lawyers can illuminate what happened. An inmate file would be helpful if the person is incarcerated. A signed release of information allowing attorneys to speak with the reporter should be handed over up front. It can accelerate our research.

Write a timeline: As Tennessee Senator Howard Baker asked former White House Counsel John Dean about Watergate: “What did the president know, and when did he know it?”

Often it’s the order of events that matters in these cases because it either confirms or challenges what people know. This is key. Without a linear depiction of what happened and when, it’s hard to see who knew what and when. Because criminal cases aren’t just about actions but also the accused persons’ state of mind, seeing the events spatially can be essential to any inquiry.

Get transcripts: Transcripts are tricky to take to a reporter because technically they’re not public records; court reporters/monitors own them privately. Their private nature makes them costly. Courts can grant fee waivers for transcripts to applicants who qualify (an incarcerated person, friends and family members with limited means). The clerk in the courthouse where the hearing or trial was held can provide these forms; they vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Courts won’t approve these fee waivers for journalists and news outlets. We have to pay for these volumes and it’s an expensive gambit if they don’t reveal much to assist with the investigation.

The effort of applying for the waiver and having master copies of testimony is worth it. Sometimes you might wonder if the judges who write appellate opinions even read the transcripts at all when you see the way the testimony (the content of the transcripts) appears in a court’s opinion. Those inconsistencies provide fertile ground for someone other than a lawyer to find a reversible error.

We did exactly that here at The National Memo in 2022; we found false evidence in the trial transcripts of Melissa Lucio, the only Hispanic woman sentenced to death in Texas. Her execution was paused pending a hearing after her attorneys included our reporting in a petition to the court. Read the Lucio series here.

Keep a copy: Do this for all paperwork you complete, like fee waiver applications you file, rejections to requests for records.

Sometimes agencies don’t cooperate and it may seem impossible to get the documents you need. But that may be part of the story and we’ll need that proof.

Don’t be offended when a journalist doesn't take your word for it: When we ask for confirmation of a part of the story, it’s not because we suspect you of misrepresenting anything. We need confirmation for our editors.

If there’s no other evidence besides your knowledge of a particular situation, then turn that knowledge into evidence. It can be done relatively easily. In that case, use this template to make out an affidavit. An affidavit — sworn, out-of-court testimony — can be used as evidence. It doesn’t prove that the facts within are true, but it does show the witness’ willingness to expose themselves to perjury charges if the contents of the statement are proven false. Often journalists can use these statements in their reporting.

Find a therapist: This isn’t a layperson diagnosis of mental illness. I’m not pointing out flaws in those people seeking justice for friends, family members or even prisoners. It’s quite the opposite.

Wrongful convictions, lengthy incarceration, waiting for a languid bureaucracy to fix mistakes they made in a millisecond are traumatic experiences even for bystanders. Trying to explain the facts and the trauma to a journalist wastes time and asks them to act as an advisor of sorts. We know — and especially I know — how harmful injustice is, not just to the defendant or inmate, but also people close to them.

But explaining to us how stressful all of this doesn't help anyone — we’re supposed to be investigating — but it’s also pointless because we’re not trained to assist in those ways. Finding a professional with whom you can work out your feelings will enhance your ability to secure attention — and therefore assistance for your cause. Find A Therapist is just one source of information on service providers in your area.

Be Patient: Getting new records or finding the best witness can take time. It won’t happen overnight.


Be Realistic: While pressure from the press can break logjams and even expose innocence, it’s not always possible. We’d love to clear some names and spring some bodies from custody but we’re not magicians.


Chandra Bozelko did time in a maximum-security facility in Connecticut. While inside she became the first incarcerated person with a regular byline in a publication outside of the facility. Her “Prison Diaries" column ran in The New Haven Independent, and she later established a blog under the same name that earned several professional awards. Her columns now appear regularly in The National Memo.

New York Daily News building

Alden Global Capital Is Killing The Local Newsroom

If Hollywood wanted to make a gritty movie about the work of dig-it-out newspaper reporters who uncover big local stories of government doings and corporate misdeeds, it couldn't have chosen a more picture-perfect location than the boisterous newsroom of New York's Daily News. Once the largest-circulation paper in America, the Daily News embodied the rich history of brawny tabloid journalism, even serving as the model for DC Comics' Daily Planet, workplace of Clark Kent and Lois Lane in Superman.

But there'd be a problem with filming at the Daily News now: Its owners have eliminated the newsroom, leaving reporters, editors, photographers, et al. with no shared workplace. Yes, today, it's a newspaper without a newsroom.

This once-proud publication is now owned and run by Alden Global Capital, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund with a long record of buying papers on the cheap, selling off their assets and slashing pay and jobs. Media watchers have labeled these vulture capitalists the "ruthless corporate strip-miners" of local journalism. And sure enough, in the past couple of years Alden's profiteers have steadily plundered the paper, eliminating half of its newsroom staff. Then, last August, they told the remaining journalists they would no longer have a physical place to work.

To be clear, this closure was not a temporary measure to protect staff from COVID-19. Nor was the newsroom abandoned in favor of relocation to a less expensive office (an increasingly common cost-saving decision). Indeed, real newspaper publishers realize that the collective hive vitality of a newsroom, with its camaraderie and reportorial cross-fertilization, enriches the journalism.

But Alden is in the business of making money, not journalism. The Wall Street bosses emailed staff that they weren't selling the offices — just leasing them to other businesses, creating a new revenue stream to fatten the profits of the fund's investors.

Unfortunately, such crass corporate calculations are typical of the new model of a nationalized, "conglomeratized," and financialized "local" journalism that has already taken over thousands of papers in big cities, suburbs, and rural areas across America.

The scale and speed of that transformation have been breathtaking.

Alden's high-flying hedge funders have amalgamated the second biggest newspaper conglomerate in the country, having swallowed up more than 200 papers, including metro dailies in Baltimore; Boston; Boulder, Colorado; Chicago; Denver; Hartford, Connecticut; Norfolk, Virginia; Orange County, California; Orlando, Florida; San Jose, California, and St. Paul, Minnesota.

Last August, in one blow, the 30 papers owned by the venerable McClatchy family fell to yet another multibillion-dollar hedge fund, Chatham Asset Management (led by a former Wall Street junk-bond dealer). With this buyout, Chatham's clique of global speculators grabbed the major dailies in Charlotte, North Carolina; Fort Worth, Texas; Kansas City, Missouri; Lexington, Kentucky; Miami; Sacramento, California, and Seattle.

Then there's the colossal Gannett conglomerate, now owned by Japan's SoftBank Group. It runs USA Today, as well as more than 1,000 local papers across the U.S., including the main dailies in Austin, Texas; Burlington, Vermont; Cincinnati; Detroit; Des Moines, Iowa; Indianapolis; Louisville, Kentucky; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Nashville, Tennessee; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Phoenix; Providence, Rhode Island; Reno, Nevada; and Springfield, Missouri.

The operational mandate of newspaper hedge funds is absolute: Sacrifice local newsgathering and community interest to squeeze out every bit of profit and siphon it off to unknown investors in WhoKnowsWhereLand. The papers Alden acquired were reportedly profitable, with annual margins of around ten percent. But the hedge fund sharpies demanded that all their papers deliver 20 percent or more — a level at which the squeeze becomes deadly to quality journalism.

Community life cannot thrive without community news, which in turn depends on reporters and editors who are of the community and have the know-how, time, and resources to investigate, educate, expose, inform, entertain, and generally enlighten the citizenry. But what does some obscure, aloof money manipulator know or care about your community or its democratic vitality? Zilch, that's what.

To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.