- October 10, 2023
- By Tom Rosenstiel
Journalists looking for the playbook on how to cover former President Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection campaign are coming up empty: There’s no precedent of a candidate running while under multiple indictments and saying so many things that are demonstrably false.
Journalists assigned to report on him need to recognize their changed role in this era of dramatic political polarization, says Tom Rosenstiel, Eleanor Merrill Scholar on the Future of Journalism at the University of Maryland. In a new essay in The Los Angeles Times, where he is a former media writer, he suggests journalists stop following Trump—or any other presidential candidates—around or attending rallies.
This conventional approach inevitably leads to stories on campaign tactics and horse-race coverage. Most voters don’t care. The press does it because it’s easy.
The 2024 race will be nothing like what journalists have encountered in past elections. They would better serve the public if they changed their habits and shifted their resources to four other dimensions of the campaign.
Read the rest in The Los Angeles Times.
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