Goodbye Nonpartisan Journalism. And Good Riddance.

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[Commentary] We don’t yet know to what extent Donald Trump will succeed in remaking the United States, but his candidacy and presidency are already remaking American journalism. It is not just that the ranting and raving on talk radio, on cable news, on websites, on Twitter have grown, if anything, louder. What’s more significant is how the political world’s encounter with President Trump is changing our most respected journalism organizations—including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the network evening newscasts and CNN.

The big news in American journalism today has been that reporters, editors and producers at legacy journalism organizations have become so eager to dispute the more questionable pronouncements and proposals of the Trump administration. Increasingly, they are prepared to label the president’s wilder statements and tweets “falsehoods” or even “lies.” The big news is that many of our best journalists seem, in news coverage, not just opinion pieces, to be moving away from balance and nonpartisanship.

[Mitchell Stephens is a professor of journalism at New York University]


Goodbye Nonpartisan Journalism. And Good Riddance.