It’s hard to overstate how bonkers the news
cycle is right now.
Republicans are trying to ram through a train-wreck
health care bill without any hearings.
This process is an embarrassment.
This is nuclear-grade bonkers.
The White House is threatening the attorney
general to derail the Russia investigation.
So not only does he call Jeff Sessions beleaguered,
he says he is not doing his job.
And Trump is actively asking if he’s allowed
to pardon himself if it turns out he committed
a crime.
Any one of those stories represents a fundamental
breakdown in political norms.
But if you turn on CNN or your local news
channel right now, things will probably look
kind of normal.
Let’s discuss all this with our CNN political
commentators.
When Jeff Sessions wakes up, what is he thinking
when he hears this?
This is not your typical president.
Even boring.
The Senate is trying for a Hail Mary on this
health care bill.
What is the latest?
We expect the vote in an hour.
Do we know if they have the votes?
And that’s because our news media isn’t
great at conveying when our politicians have
gone truly off the rails.
If you look at some of the most well-respected
journalists on TV —
Anderson Cooper, Lester Holt, Wolf Blitzer
—
they all kind of talk the same way.
They’re unemotional, even-keeled, and unfazed
by the stories they’re covering.
You could watch Wolf Blitzer on mute and not
know if he’s talking about the Kardashians
or a nuclear missile launch.
The norm in American media is that journalists
shouldn’t get flustered or outraged or even
emotional about the political disputes they’re
covering.
They should present the facts, let panelists
argue about it, and then move on.
And in normal political disagreements, that’s
fine.
But in the Trump era, it’s made political
journalism feel totally inadequate.
Take the recent Senate health care vote.
Republicans voted to consider a bill without
knowing what was in it.
They tried to pass it in the dead of night
with no committee hearings.
And the bill was so bad they made Paul Ryan
promise not to pass it, hoping they’d come
up with something better before it was too
late.
That’s a gross hijacking of the legislative
process.
It’s gambling with the lives of millions
of people.
Even conservative commentators called it “disgraceful.”
But on CNN?
Business as usual.
What is the strategy on health care?
What’s amazing, we still don’t know if
there are 50 Republican votes.
Can the Republicans come up with something
that gets 50 votes?
Can they?
No freaking out.
If the bill is as bad as Senate Republicans
say, then they don’t have to worry about
House Republicans deciding to pass it.
Don Lemon just doing his thing.
I mean, when you say the “skinny” repeal,
makes it sound like a diet plan.
They want to drop the weight of this bill.
The same thing happened after Trump started
looking to get rid of Jeff Sessions and Robert
Mueller, which would effectively trigger a
full-scale constitutional crisis.
News outlets treated it like just personal
drama from the Trump White House.
The escalating drama between President Trump
and the Justice Department.
Another juicy scandal to let commentators
argue over.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
Donald Trump is a bit of a bully.
He is who he is.
That’s the Popeye defense, “I am what
I am.”
I am what I am: I’m a blunt-spoken New Yorker.
This is Trump being Trump.
This is what normalization actually looks
like.
Journalists feel compelled to treat every
news story like the ones that came before
it.
Not official until, until the gavel pounds.
And again, until this gavel comes down, it’s
not official.
They just can’t admit that something abnormal
is happening.
Think of those people who ignore hurricane
evacuation warnings.
What do you mean you’re not leaving?
Well, I’m hoping it’s not going to be
as serious as they’re saying.
And it’s important to recognize this as
a form of bias.
Call it “normalcy bias.”
And that normalcy bias ends up making for
misleading news coverage.
A huge part of the way that we process news
is by nonverbal cues,
how a story is framed and delivered and compares
to every other news story.
So when Anderson Cooper is laughing during
a segment about Trump derailing Mueller’s
investigation, audiences perceive that it’s
not a big deal.
That this is normal.
When a segment about Trump pardoning himself
looks and sounds like every other segment,
it’s easy to assume that everything is fine.
When TV anchors are just casually updating
you on the status of the health care vote,
they’re not conveying how dangerous what
happened is.
Certainly some drama as this thing comes down
to the wire.
It’s not like everyone’s pretending everything
is fine.
You know, we get tired of saying, “It’s
shocking, it’s unusual, it’s not normal,”
but it’s shocking, it’s unusual, it’s
not normal.
But this shouldn’t be the job of commentators
or guests dropped into otherwise normal-looking
segments.
One of the central responsibilities of journalism
is to tell us when something really abnormal
is happening.
It’s why Shep Smith goes viral any time
he gets frustrated.
Why is it lie after lie after lie?
If you clean, come on clean.
It’s why Anderson Cooper’s best moment
was when he got emotional covering Katrina.
There are people who want answers, and there
are people who want someone to stand up and
say, “You know what, we should’ve done
more.”
Some stories are too important, too dangerous
to be treated like everyday political disputes.
But until news networks adapt their behavior
for this administration, it’s worth remembering
that our politics are a lot scarier than what
they look like on TV.
