Surviving as a journalist in the age of Trump
by Tom Sullivan
Hasan Minhaj’s monologue at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner may have gotten lost in Samantha Bee’s flashier alt-event. He had plenty of fire for the Trump administration, but some biting jabs at the news as reality TV:
Every time I watch CNN, it feels like you’re assigning me homework.
“Is Trump a Russian spy?”
I don’t know; you tell me.
“Tweet us @AC360.”
No, you tell me!
The Daily Show “correspondent” delivered a wake up call for journalists in the room who have lost the trust of the American people. They would be wise to take heed:
I know I’m busting balls. I don’t have a solution on how to win back trust. I don’t. But in the age of Trump I know that you guys have to be more perfect now more than ever. Because you are how the president gets his news. Not from advisors. Not from experts. Not from intelligence agencies … you guys.
So that’s why you got to be on your A-game. You gotta be twice as good. Can’t make any mistakes, because when one of you messes up, he blames your entire group.
And now you know what it feels like to be a minority.
And I can see some of you guys complaining. Like what?! I gotta work twice as hard for half the credit? Remember, you’re a minority.
You guys got a lot more experience than me, but I got three decades of being brown. So if you want to survive the age of Trump, you got to think like a minority. And now that you’re a minority, oh man, everyone is going to expect you to be the mouthpiece for the entire group.
So I hate to say it, but somewhere right now all of you are being represented by Geraldo Rivera.
It was a long setup for the “minority” joke, but it was a sobering one. Maybe if the Village press stopped acting like courtiers and started thinking of themselves as a minority, they’d get a tiny bit of their mojo back. And maybe the public’s trust with it.