How Should the Media Cover President Trump and COVID-19?

MARGARET SULLIVAN, WASHINGTON POST MEDIA COLUMNIST: One of the things that’s going on in the United States is that there’s something called Fox News and it gives the Trump administration something that, at times, comes perilously close to state TV, which is very easily controllable and it is used as a weapon against the rest of the press in a very effective way. And I don’t think we see this, at least not to this extent, in the rest of the democratic world. So, that’s — that is a huge factor. Of course, the press needs to back each other up, and I think to some extent, to some extent, they do. But, you know, Trump is very wily and he has a huge base and he plays to his base constantly. It’s not as simple — it’s not very simple. And the other point I would make is that I agree and continue to agree with my boss, Marty Baron, not just because he’s my boss, but you talk about a war between the press and Trump. I don’t think we are at war with him. I think we’re trying to cover him and he is at war with us.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Indeed. That’s absolutely correct. Let me just quote something else you wrote, because Andy Lack, the head of NBC News, the president of NBC News, published recently saying that the press is winning. And you said, because, you know, despite the odds, we tell Americans the truth every day, he said. You said, in reaction, is this winning? Only in the sense that a verbally abused spouse is winning if she manages to get the kids off to school after another sleepless night. Well, I mean, you know, that’s pretty vivid imagery. And let me now move it back to Fintan. The question here, Fintan, is that very few people, certainly not in President Trump’s own party, are willing to say the emperor has no clothes. And also, not amongst his global partners in the alliances in leaderships. We’re seeing right now that they are desperate, the world is desperate for traditional American leadership. As we’ve seen in previous crisis, pandemics, financial devastation and the rest is simply not happening this time. We haven’t actually seen world leaders be as brave as perhaps they should be in this extraordinary face-off.

FINTAN O’TOOLE, IRISH TIMES COLUMNIST: Yes. It’s a great point to make, I think. Trump does not exist in a vacuum. So, within the United States, of course, this is only possible because the ground has been prepared for it by the rise of the right-wing within the Republican Party, the collapse of traditional conservatism, which, of course, would have, you know, emphasized safety, security, good authority, all of those kinds of old conservative values would have come into play. This crisis is showing us how deep the problem goes in the United States,