In Age of Trump, Political Reporters Are in Demand and Under Attack

Since President Donald Trump took office a year ago, the political press has endured a sustained assault from a chief executive who has called journalists “the enemy of the American people.” Yet the news media has also driven decisions inside the West Wing to a degree perhaps unmatched since the scandal-ridden days of Richard Nixon. And White House aides and reporters alike say that political reality is being refracted by the media in an unprecedented way.

Some reporters, in unguarded moments, say that they fear for journalists’ safety. Margaret Talev, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, was moved to tears in an interview as she recounted the death threats that now routinely land in her colleagues’ emails. Other journalists — ironic, cynical or simply enterprising, depending on your point of view — have embraced the moment as the wildest ride of their lives, and a lucrative one, too: the number of Washington reporters with cable television contracts, some with salaries verging on six figures, has surged.