Everything wrong with Big Journalism in six words

One of my favorite editors used to advise me that when trying to report or comment on a situation that is multi-faceted, overwhelming and sweeping, do the counterintuitive thing: Approach it through one seemingly minor example. In other words, tell the big story small.

The big story, of course, is what’s happening today at noon in Washington, DC: The inauguration of Donald Trump, a notorious conman, liar and would-be autocrat; and with that, all the societal ills that caused his reelection. Among them are a poorly educated and under-informed electorate, racism, misogyny, the growth of a right-wing information sphere — and yes, the failures of the mainstream media, who too often made it their business to present Trump as a normal candidate instead of a dire, even existential, threat to a nation ruled by law. Plus, of course, all the dangers of the next four years, presaged by Trump’s symbolic move of the inauguration indoors, screwing all his loyal followers, in favor of hanging out with his tech-bro billionaires.

Telling it small brings me to the new mission statement of the Washington Post. As you probably know, in recent years, the Post’s motto has been “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” These words were much mocked when they first came along in 2017, early in the first Trump administration. They seemed so goth, after all, and so self-important. Will Oremus in Slate compared the motto to the names of heavy-metal albums (among them, Venom’s “Welcome to Hell” and Slayer’s “Reign in Blood”). Dean Baquet, then the editor of the New York Times, quipped that it sounded like “the next Batman movie.”

But that motto meant something important. And while melodramatic, it was a memorable way to state the mission of a great American newspaper in a dangerous era: That the Post stood for accountability. It would aim to be a watchdog of American values through fearless journalism that exposed wrongdoing. As a Post employee then — I was the media columnist from 2016 to 2022 — I wore my “Democracy Dies in Darkness” t-shirt proudly, and I loved seeing babies wearing onesies with those words across their tiny chests.

 

 

Jeff Bezos, who then had been the Post owner for about four years, reportedly was the motto’s chief proponent, explaining: “Certain institutions have a very important role in making sure there is light. And I think the Washington Post has … an important seat to do that because we happen to be located here in the capital city of the United States of America.”

Now, in our new era, the Post is attempting to rally its staff around a new mission statement, though it’s meant for internal use, not as an outward-facing motto, as reported by the New York Times in this gift-linked story.

Ready? Here it is: “Riveting storytelling for all of America.” So now we’ve come from an inspiring, if heavy-handed, emphasis on the press’s crucial role in society to corporate-speak with a message that I find both annoying and troubling. Annoying because I dislike the trendy labeling of journalism as “storytelling.” Long anecdotal lead paragraphs and endless narratives worthy of Scheherazade and the Thousand and One Nights are not my idea of what news is supposed to be. Riveting? Eye roll.

And “for all of America” is arguably coded language for an appeal to MAGA world. Bezos — who has taken a dramatically Trumpy turn in recent months — has talked about his desire to make the paper more appealing to conservatives and to working-class readers. There is nothing wrong with that, but when other news organizations have gone down that road — like CNN in its short-lived era under head honcho Chris Licht — it’s too often resulted in giving a platform to liars and election deniers.

In rolling out the new mission statement, Post management has also revealed what it has called a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) of luring 200 million users to the Post. As Parker Molloy suggested recently in The New Republic (and in her Substack), “pause for a moment to appreciate just how disconnected from reality that number is. The Post currently has few than three million digital subscribers.” The New York Times has 11 million. The rollout, as Molloy notes, “goes on to describe the Post as “an AI-fueled platform for news.”

Call me old-fashioned but I prefer the Post of the Watergate era, with Ben Bradlee, not Siri, calling the shots. Or the Post of the recent Marty Baron era, which did its best to hold Trump accountable in his first term.

You’ll still see “Democracy Dies in Darkness” (for now at least) on the Post website and in print, but the driving internal mission statement is “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.” After a number of bone-headed moves, the Post is hemorrhaging subscribers and losing some of its best reporters and editors. Many readers no longer trust its editorial independence or integrity.

I wrote about another aspect of the Washington Post’s troubles in my Guardian column this past week. I suggested three ways that Bezos can right the ship, including dumping Will Lewis, whom Bezos handpicked, about a year ago, to be the paper’s publisher and CEO. Bezos has taken a sharp turn for the worse — seeming a lot more interested in multiplying his billions than doing anything for democracy. And Bezos’s shift, too, is the big story writ small as American oligarchy gains power and influence.

Still, we carry on. As promised I’ll be carrying out my own Project 2025 right here on American Crisis, with your help — pointing out the foibles of the media and, when possible, catching them doing something right. There is no paywall here. I’m happy to have you here on any terms, and if you’d like to support this effort with a paid subscription, that would be much appreciated.

As always, I’m grateful to all of you — for your thoughtful comments, for your subscriptions, and for your words of encouragement. Thanks for being along for what’s sure to be an eventful ride. I’m here for the duration and trust you will be, too.

Julianne McShane of Mother Jones called me up recently to talk about Trump’s threats to the press. Here’s the Q&A, in which I noted Trump has already done lasting harm: “I think that he has actually been very successful in turning the public — some sections of the public, a good chunk of it — against the press.” I talked about my fear of the press’s self-censorship and the damaging decision by ABC News to settle Trump’s defamation suit.

Finally, some encouraging perspective from Brian Beutler, who wrote recently about how Trump comes into office already a lame duck — and an unusually weak one. On his Substack, Off Message, he writes: “He’s weak in the ways every lame-duck president is, and, to an under-appreciated extent, his efforts to menace and extort concessions out of domestic and international rivals is a form of rebellion against his own expiration date, his looming irrelevance.” Let’s hope he’s right, and do what we can to make it so. (Beutler offers some advice: Poke the bear.)

Tell me how you’re doing today, and how you plan to go forward. I hope you’ll keep this day in American history in perspective: It’s not forever.

P.S. The wise editor I mentioned at the top? He left the Washington Post not long after I did and, big story writ small again, is an editor now at the New York Times.

Leave a comment