Campbell Brown: Why I Blame TV News for Trump’s Rise

By Mark Joyella 

Former cable news anchor Campbell Brown says “my friends in the TV news business are in a state of despair about Donald Trump, even as their bosses in the boardroom are giddy over what he’s doing for their once sagging ratings.”

In a column published in Politico Magazine, the former NBC News and CNN anchor says the rise of Trump–fueled to an extraordinary degree by the first-time candidate’s masterful manipulation of free media–has come at a huge cost to TV news itself:

I really would like to blame Trump. But everything he is doing is with TV news’ full acquiescence. Trump doesn’t force the networks to show his rallies live rather than do real reporting. Nor does he force anyone to accept his phone calls rather than demand that he do a face-to-face interview that would be a greater risk for him. TV news has largely given Trump editorial control.

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2016-media-issue-cover-playbookThe underlying rationale–ratings, the easiest kind of all, requiring little or no actual journalism to attract an audience:

Which is why you’ll see endless variations of this banner, one I saw all three cable networks put up in a single day: “Breaking news: Trump speaks for first time since Wisconsin loss.” In all these scenes, the TV reporter just stands there, off camera, essentially useless. The order doesn’t need to be stated. It’s understood in the newsroom: Air the Trump rallies live and uninterrupted. He may say something crazy; he often does, and it’s always great television.

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