President Donald Trump's return to office has brought back his signature phrase in response to the news media, fake news.
But this week, we saw the White House take things a step further.
Trump will now be handpicking journalists for the White House press pool.
Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos wants the Washington Post's opinion section to steer clear of political takes.
this is swamp notes the weekly podcast from the ft news briefing where we talk about all the things happening in u .s politics i'm mark filipino and this week we're asking 10 news outlets keep doing their jobs in the current political climate here with me now to discuss is james pleedy he's the ft's
washington bureau chief hi james hi mark nice to be with you good to have you and we've also got chris grimes who covers the business of media for the ft hi chris hi there how are you Good.
James, let's start with you.
For those who may not know, what is the White House press pool?
So the White House press pool is a system, really, that's set up by the correspondents who cover the White House for various news organizations to cover presidents in intimate settings.
So when they're in the Oval Office, when they're on Air Force One, when they're traveling to events, and who gets to go into those intimate settings is decided by the White House Correspondents Association, which is a group of journalists from various media organizations.
Right. And they make sure that different outlets get a turn.
So one week, it'll be Politico.
One week, it'll be another news organization.
And whoever is that day's pooler distributes the information that they get to other news outlets.
So then what was the announcement this week made by White House Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt?
And why does it matter?
The announcement made by the White House Press Secretary was that they would have control over who participates in the White House press pool.
So they will get to decide who will be in those intimate settings with the president.
It's really about the idea that the government gets to choose who has close access to the White House and to the president in particular.
And if that means that it's specific reporters with ideological affinity or just generally sort of friendliness to the president that won't be as independent as other voices, then I think that's where the, you know, concern comes in.
Chris, this is definitely not the first thing Trump has done that's raising eyebrows with the press.
You co -wrote a feature about this a couple of weeks back.
What else are we looking at?
Right. So even before the inauguration, Trump was already feuding with the press.
He went after ABC News.
He sued ABC News over the interview that he did with George Stephanopoulos.
And ABC and its parent company, Walt Disney, settled with Trump on that.
And then there's also been this ongoing dispute with CBS over the interview that 60 Minutes did with Kamala Harris.
Trump has called This is the biggest scandal in broadcasting history for the way that the 60 Minutes editors edited a promo for the interview, which was pithier than the actual longer interview.
And I've been talking to a lot of people over the last few weeks about this.
And really, a lot of these lawsuits are pretty legally flimsy, but that doesn't really matter.
The point is to exert pressure on the media, keep them on the back foot.
And I think Richard Nixon did this kind of thing, too, not with the lawsuits necessarily, but he was constantly attacking the press.
The difference now from back in the Watergate days when there was all that antagonism is that a lot of these media organizations are no longer as financially secure as they were back then.
Whether it's newspapers or traditional broadcast companies, they aren't the big beasts that they were in previous eras of this antagonism with the White House.
It's a different world, right?
And speaking of which, we now live in a world where one of our biggest tech moguls owns a major national newspaper.
I'm, of course, talking about Jeff Bezos, who is both the owner of Amazon and the Washington Post.
And Bezos this week instructed the outlet to basically write opinion pieces on just two topics, personal liberties and free markets.
Chris, why are people talking about this as a piece of political news and, you know, not just an editorial policy?
Well, I think the reason people are jumping to that is that, you know, one of the things that Bezos said in his memo about this was that, you know, that there was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, uh, you know, had some kind of a responsibility to give opinions on lots
of things. But he said, you know, all that stuff can belongs on the internet now.
Now, um, most people would think it's an abdication of responsibility in a way to say that the Washington Post opinion page doesn't have any role in or doesn't have any interest in giving opinions about politics in Washington, right?
It's the capital, it's the center of power of the Western world, blah, blah, blah.
I mean, I think what's especially interesting about the, you know, the Washington Post shift is that their editorial page has traditionally been fairly centrist, reflecting the Washington establishment, which generally takes moderate positions sort of on both sides of the political spectrum and on many
issues. And now it seems to be focused on sort of the pet projects of the owner, Jeff Bezos, rather than sort of the consensus of Washington, which has been, of course, overthrown by Donald Trump.
So, and I guess the elephant in the room here that we didn't really address is why there's skepticism about this.
And you have to go back to the first Trump term to answer that.
Trump didn't like the coverage he was getting in the Washington Post.
He started labeling it as the Amazon Washington Post.
He said that Bezos' ownership of the Washington Post was, quote, protection against an antitrust suit, which would probably seem pretty threatening if you run a company the size of Amazon.
Trump also said that Amazon was getting away with murder tax -wise, which I guess you would also interpret it as something of a threat.
Amazon later sued, claiming the company had been denied a $10 billion defense contract for cloud computing services because of, quote, escalating and overt pressure from the president.
So, you know, Amazon does have a lot of business with the government, and, you know, they don't want policies that would go against their corporate interests.
So this is the reason that a lot of people are interpreting Bezos' what feels like change in position since around the election.
I want to go back to Donald Trump and this administration for a second and mention a couple of other things that I've read about that seem to encroach on the news media.
So you have the Pentagon.
It's asked legacy news organizations to vacate the spaces they've had reserved there as part of their coverage.
The new head of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, has asked about pulling funding from public radio and public television.
Guys, what does Trump's relationship during this administration look like versus his first time around as president and also, you know, compared to other presidents?
So I think what's different now compared to the first Trump administration and compared to previous administrations is that to a certain extent, you know, all presidents want to exert some control over the media that covers them, tries to make their case, tries to spin them in every possible way.
You know, Trump traditionally has attacked the media.
He did that during his first presidency.
And there was an adversarial relationship with some outlets in particular.
I think what's different now is that there are measures being taken, for instance, to restrict or to take control over who has access to the pool or who has offices in places like the Pentagon or other agencies that they hadn't done before.
So to that extent, it looks like the main difference is that they're taking actions and not just sort of verbally attacking the media.
Yes, I agree. I think presidents always complain about their coverage, right?
But I think Trump is exceeding the pressure.
This has just been a bazooka of action in the second term.
It feels like he's just trying to keep constant pressure on the mainstream press to keep them on the back foot and to try to tame them.
Guys, what do you make of this week in journalism and media as journalists?
I mean, does it impact the way you think about your jobs or how you think of the industry generally?
How are you approaching the next four years?
I mean, it's certainly a changed backdrop, especially, you know, these changes about, you know, that are coming from the White House and the way that they give access to the president through the pool.
But I think from a reporting point of view, nothing really, you know, changes for us.
You know, we continue to report factually and independently and try to tell the story of this, you know, kind of extraordinary upheaval that Trump is bringing to, you know, American politics, the world, society in the best way that we can.
And we sort of press ahead with that.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
But when James and I got into this business, we knew that it was a really competitive one.
And it's been as long as I've been at it, which is quite some time now.
There's been new media pressure.
The business models change like 10 times.
And I think James is absolutely right.
It doesn't change anything about how we do this.
I guess the worry that I have is making sure that the type of journalism that we do and so many other people do so well, which is fact -based, fact -checked work that seeks to represent two sides of a story, that that gets crowded out in a media landscape that is increasingly its influencers and its people
who make no bones about having a viewpoint and a strong viewpoint, often an affiliation.
All right, guys, I want to thank you both for a really interesting conversation.
Chris Grimes covers the business of media from Los Angeles for the FT.
Thanks, Chris. Thank you.
And James Pleedy is the FT's Washington Bureau Chief.
Chief. Thank you so much, James.
Thanks, Mark. This was Swamp Notes, the US politics show from the FT News briefing.
If you want to sign up for the Swamp Notes newsletter, we've got a link to that in the show notes.
Our show is mixed by Sam Giovinko and produced by Katya Konkova.
Special thanks to Pierre Nicholson.
Help this week came from Sonia Hudson.
I'm your host, Mark Filipino.
Our executive producer is Topher Forges and Cheryl Brumley is the FT's Global Head of Audio.
Original music by Hannes Brown.
Check back next week for more U .S.
political analysis from the Financial Times.
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