Prestigious news organizations gave scant attention when, for several days recently, Donald Trump faded from public view. Other than some social media posts and some blurry golf-course images, the normally ubiquitous president seemed almost to disappear.
But most of Big Journalism gave that subject a pass.
Given Trump’s obvious health problems – swollen ankles, an uneven gait, bruised hands and instances of verbal confusion – the media silence struck a lot of people as hypocrisy.
“Why are the biggest newsrooms silent?” demanded John Passantino, who writes for the media newsletter Status. “No front-page write ups. No broadcast packages.” Trump’s health problems and near disappearance “barely registered in mainstream coverage”.
By contrast, the media went overboard with unrelenting coverage of Joe Biden’s old age, but it came late. Almost all of it followed the then president’s shockingly weak debate appearance during his 2024 re-election campaign.
There was plenty of finger-pointing – even a bestselling book by two media bigwigs – about the failures to report Biden’s decline earlier and about the White House’s efforts to obscure it.
This time, over the Labor Day weekend, wild rumors swirled on social media that Trump had died, or had suffered a debilitating stroke or a series of them. The much-read Drudge Report published a story with this headline: PRESIDENT HEALTH CRISIS DEEPENS.
Nevertheless, JD Vance seemed to target big media.
“If the media you consumed told you that Donald Trump was on his deathbed because he didn’t do a press conference for three days, imagine what else they’re lying to you about,” Vance posted on X.
That translated, for the gullible, into the usual trashing of the mainstream press, a regular talking point from Magaworld.
In fact, big journalism was guilty of nothing of the sort; if anything, they took Trump’s disappearance too lightly.
As is often the case with Trump and his allies, there’s a lot of projection going on.
“Imagine what else they’re lying to you about” is something that might, much more accurately, be said about Trump and his minions on any number of subjects.
Trump joined in, too. “It’s fake news – it’s so fake. That’s why the media has so little credibility,” he responded to a Fox News question that conveniently set up this round of media-bashing. (“How did you find out over the weekend that you were dead?” asked Peter Doocy at a briefing after Trump re-emerged.)
Nonsense, of course. Most of the mainstream media was overly cautious, if anything, in approaching the topic.
When the New York Times did get around to covering the issue, the paper took up the topic obliquely – focusing primarily on the false rumors of Trump’s death and then, much lower in a long story, addressing the paucity of information about his actual health. The headline: President Trump Is Alive. The Internet was Convinced Otherwise.
The story puts in historical context the tendency of White House staffs to obscure the physical problems of American presidents – from Woodrow Wilson’s stroke to John F Kennedy’s chronic back pain. Eventually, it makes the point that “justifiable concerns and questions about Mr Trump’s health have often been met with obfuscation or minimal explanation from the people around him”.
(The White House in July explained Trump’s bruising and swelling as chronic venous insufficiency, but downplayed the condition as benign and common for older people; his doctor pronounced him in excellent health.)
Even after an assassination attempt on Trump last year, no medical briefings were held. And, to my recollection, there was precious little investigative follow-up on that.
Yet, amid all of this, the White House press secretary claimed that Trump has been “completely transparent about his health with the public, unlike his predecessor”.
As usual, in Trumpworld, a lie outpaces the truth, and everything is Biden’s fault.
So what does responsible media coverage of this topic look like? The question evokes the Goldilocks fairy tale: what’s too hot? What’s too cold? And what’s just right?
“Evidence-based assessments of a president’s health are absolutely fair game” for journalists, Bill Grueskin of Columbia Journalism School told Associated Press media reporter David Bauder.
And when someone as omnipresent in the media as Trump drops out of view for days? That’s fair game, too.
With Trump now in his 80th year – he turned 79 in June – these questions are not going away. Rampant speculation certainly isn’t the answer, but it tends to flood in when there is a vacuum of real information.
The unquestioning acceptance of White House reassurance isn’t the answer either.
In good journalism, “just right” is founded on skepticism and addressed by persistence – by doggedly digging out the facts and presenting them forthrightly.