Let's talk about Trump's tone. https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/journalists-have-been-obsessing-over-trump-supposedly-changing-his-tone-five-years

It was more than 5 years ago that Trump announced he was running for president.

1,869 days, to be exact.

In February 2016, mainstream news outlets gave Trump credit for being "toned down" compared to the man who just 2 months earlier had called for "a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the US"

And then he immediately went back to slinging insults and pushing xenophobic policies. But no worries, because he read off of a teleprompter after winning on Super Tuesday.... so, you know, more "new tone" praise.

And of course, he was back to his old self a day later.

But here's something from April 20, 2016.

Trump gave a speech where he referred to Cruz as "Senator Cruz." Sure, they followed it up with a clip showing Trump had already gone back to calling him "lyin Ted," but... tone!

Seriously, look how low the bar is. https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/abc-world-news-tonight-trump-not-calling-ted-cruz-liar-presidential-style

By May, the Morning Joe crowd was patting him on the head, cheering on a "pivot."

It was just completely and totally embarrassing the things he'd get credit for. He shared the list of judges the Federalist Society gave him, and was called "presidential" for it.

In June 2016, following the Pulse nightclub shooting, CNN was calling him "presidential" and claiming that Trump was "reaching out to gay Americans" (but really it was just a way for him to advance his immigration policies)

He even got credit for eventually firing Corey Lewandowski. Tone! Pivot!

After delivering kind of a rambling anti-Clinton speech, MSNBC and CNN fell over themselves to talk about how presidential he looked.

Fast-forwarding a bit, when he delivered his first speech to Congress, mainstream media hyped it as an opportunity to "reset" his presidency... and then after he finished, said he did exactly that (he didn't). The most cringeworthy reaction was from Van Jones:

And here's the thing about the way mainstream news outlets are always looking for examples of "tone" or "pivots" or "resets" so they can pretend he's a normal president: it makes them *very* bad at their jobs, makes them seem less informed than the average person.

Here's an example. While Van Jones and the rest of mainstream news media were just heaping praise on Trump, a woman in CBS' focus group had better analysis than all of them.

Seriously, she very clearly demonstrated that she knew more about politics than any of the professional analysts on TV that night. Because she lives in reality. https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/836782826133549057

That woman was right. Just 4 days later, Trump was rage tweeting about how Obama was a "Bad (or sick) guy!" and ranting about wires being tapped.

And look, I understand the "credit where credit is due" approach here, but too often journalists have tried to treat instances of Trump's "new tone" as though this isn't something we've seen play out literally dozens of times by now. Reporting without context is not reporting.

I understand that journalists *want* Trump to be a normal, competent leader. I think we'd all like it if the president was able to do the basics of his job. But projecting those wishes onto him doesn't actually change who he is or how he governs.

The most frustrating recent example came from his response to the pandemic.

On March 17, the Associated Press, CNN, USA Today, etc., all gave Trump credit for finally taking the virus seriously and taking on a unifying, sober tone.

Less than 2 weeks later, guess what happened? After Trump returned to denying the virus was a serious threat, to downplaying the importance of masks and distancing, etc., he managed to appear normal for a single briefing.

And once again, got praise from mainstream press.

Then in July CNN gave him credit for a "pivot" after he said he'd wear masks in public.

And then 2.5 weeks later, CNN gave him credit for ANOTHER pivot because... he tweeted out a picture of himself wearing a mask — something he seems to have done just the one time for a photo op.

The Daily Beast reported on the strategy involved here. Trump knows that the US press is easily-duped into giving him positive coverage whenever he pretends to be taking something seriously for a few minutes. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-literally-laughed-at-how-he-can-game-the-press-with-his-new-tone?ref=scroll

He did it again last week. He's as reckless and unhinged as ever, but some in the press are just desperate to pat him on the back if he can make it through a briefing without yelling at a reporter, basically.

I close my article with some personal thoughts on the issue. https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/journalists-have-been-obsessing-over-trump-supposedly-changing-his-tone-five-years

Here’s a mashup that the amazing @JohnnyHeatWave made to go along with my @mmfa article. It’s depressing.

The state of American news media:

One point I made in the article:

If you were a food critic who ate at a restaurant 3 times, 2 of which gave you food poisoning... would you still write a positive review for the one time you *didn’t* get sick? I’m going to guess not.

It’s all even more ridiculous if you look at the number of times *the same person* cresulously talks about Trump’s “new tone.” For instance, here’s @DanaBashCNN

It is August 2015. I am watching pundits discuss Donald Trump’s “new tone.”

It is February 2016. I am watching pundits discuss Donald Trump’s “new tone.”

It is March 2020. I am watching pundits discuss Donald Trump’s “new tone.”

It is July 2020. I am watching pundits discu

Writing about the press for a living like

https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/journalists-have-been-obsessing-over-trump-supposedly-changing-his-tone-five-years