BANFF – The biggest, and perhaps most frustrating, story of 2017 remains the current – and exceedingly unpredictable – administration of President Donald Trump.
World leaders, and the worldwide public, are eager to make sense of what's happening to the U.S.A.; the most powerful military power on the planet and, until recently, the agreed leader of Western democratic liberalism.
Concurrent with this 45th presidency, indeed with last year's presidential contest, is the rise of fake news and it's miserable handmaiden – alternative facts. Much is made of many Americans, in the "fly over" states especially, feeling ignored or misunderstood by mainstream media organizations.
Others apparently dismiss every conventional outlet as a partisan, elite voice. On a daily basis, perhaps even hourly or minute-by-minute on some Facebook and Twitter feeds, the truth itself has come under siege.
At a Banff World Media Festival session titled, Media in the Age of Trump, James Goldston, president of ABC News, took a valiant shot at trying to tease sense out of the absurdity.
How the heck can modern newsrooms respond to the current climate, particularly with the spotlight so intense? Goldston, who was hired from the U.K.'s ITV in London, was named to his current ABC post in 2014; where he oversees all aspects of the news division, including broadcast, digital, and radio, a combined audience that is apparently unmatched below the 49th parallel.
He's been responsible for breaking news stories in Cuba, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and the Ukraine, the riots in Ferguson and terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels, Nice, San Bernardino, Orlando, Manchester and London.
And while he has a boatload of awards, one entity requires mentioning here: Goldston won the first ever Edward R. Murrow Award for virtual reality programming, and since 2014, ABC News was won three consecutive Murrow Awards for overall excellence in television and radio – a historic first for any network. The Murrow Awards are synonymous with outstanding achievement in electronic journalism – the pinnacle tip of the gold standard – so he's no slouch.
But Goldston's first contextual remarks are nothing less than "it feels like an incredible moment in time… where fast paced events are going so fast we just can't keep up.”
As we huddled in real-time within this Banff ballroom, then it was day 144 of the Trump presidency, a news cascade poured over the audience: Trump confidant Christopher Ruddy claims Trump is considering terminating special counsel Robert Mueller, then White House press secretary Sean Spicer heatedly denies that assertion, followed by the president attacking Ruddy for peddling false news; added to day 144 is the tweet claim by former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, that "Republicans are delusional if they think the special counsel is going to be fair. look who he is hiring… time to rethink,” added to which ( in this same day news cycle) another story goes virtually unreported — a Congressional reporter, according to Goldston, was informed on day 144 that "she can no longer talk directly to anybody in the Senate… that she must submit her questions in writing to the Senate Rules Committee… and they will decide if, when and where she can pose her query.”
“The Commander in Tweet is exhausting.” – James Goldston, ABC News
Goldston pretty nearly threw up his hands, claiming that "the Commander in Tweet is exhausting.”
That said, it does appear to be the new (ab)normal. He went on to cite polling numbers giving Trump the lowest support of any president ever after 144 days and of those days, Trump had spent more than 20% of them at his golf courses.
He then leapt into a couple of fake news samples that he's recently had to deal with: a) former President Barack Obama has built a big statue of himself inside the White House, and, b) Michelle Obama's mother receives a huge pension for having stayed in the White House.
You can't make this stuff up folks. Er, I guess you can.
For Goldston, "fake news is simply completely toxic,” however, he sees flashlights at the end of the tunnel.
Former FBI director James Comey's full transcript of his Senate testimony received over 103,000 unique page views, more than 26 times the average page view of Comey news stories per se. For Goldston this means that the American public wants the truth, and that there's a huge and genuine appetite for trustable news.
Now for the badder news…
In a recent U.S. poll regarding trust, 37% of the respondents trusted Trump to tell the truth versus 21% for conventional media: Moreover, a staggering (to me) 72% of Republicans trusted Trump versus only 8% for the media.
So now what the Hell do we do?
For Goldston it means "that we're going to earn that trust day by day… we're going to invest more resources in our Washington Bureau and more reporting resources overall at ABC.”
And he's seemingly making progress – yet another poll has Robin Roberts (no relation), co-anchor of ABC's Good Morning America, as today's most trusted news personality to go along with her 2013 Most Trusted Person on Television Award (Reader's Digest poll).
Then we had a truly magic moment…
Up on the Cineplex size screens we see George Stephanopoulos, the chief anchor and chief political correspondents for ABC News, live! As some will recall, Stephanopoulos was also senior advisor to the President, in the Clinton administration, responsible for policy and strategy.
Beside him, also in real-time, are two ABC news correspondents on the ground in Washington, DC. Stephanopoulos wastes no time coming to the point, "it's hard to find anyone who can talk with authority about what the President is doing or thinking… and that's a problem.”
One of the DC correspondents added that "Trump is arrogant… it doesn't make sense… today he was quoted as saying his own (failed) health bill was mean, very mean… that's the same health bill that he brought everyone from Capital Hill to the Rose Garden to celebrate.”
"Foreign policy is like an improv show… Trump is an improv president." – George Stephanopoulos, ABC News
I think I hear incredulous chuckling from Goldston's microphone. On screen, Stephanopoulos rolls his eyes, but turns to foreign policy.
In his view, "foreign policy is like an improv show… Trump is an improv president… even his daily travel plans change by the hour… nobody really knows what he stands for… world leaders are confused… what does America First mean?"
And remember, he is a former White House planning and strategy expert and so "what exactly is Trump's strategy? Nobody knows where he stands on NATO or what his plan is for the Middle East.”
Goldston brings the conversation back to Banff at that point and admits that in this environment, as just explained from NYC and DC, "there's a difficult tension between treating both the president and the audience fairly… and providing balance… unfortunately, providing facts may look to some like we're being unfair to the president… but we have to do it.”
He then asks Stephanopoulos to share with festival attendees some top of mind weirdness ( my words), stuff that is truly atypical and unusual (his words). The ABC chief anchor is visibly struggling to order the top half-dozen out of an extensive mathematical sequence of the bizarre.
“Well, first there's Trump accusing Obama of a wiretapping felony with zero truth or evidence… then there's that no-filter Twitter feed that launches presidential whimsy and whatever comes into his head… that goes all over the world… (and) astoundingly how little planning and strategy (he loves those words) happens at the White House… Trump has very weird time management… and talking to Russians in the Oval Office about classified material is just not protocol… (and then with a huge sigh) firing an FBI director who was investigating Russia then the next day the White House telling Russians Comey was a nut job… (and finally) leaks that are coming from his own administration and seemingly from world leaders that have just met with Trump… as after the Mexico and Germany meetings.”
Perhaps to give Stephanopoulos relief to recover his breath and colour, the correspondents jump in with "the White House briefing room is now akin to combat… its far from the traditional exchange… and it's hard to prepare for answers… you can't imagine how many different directions answers from the White House come from… nobody really knows which way the president might go.”
Later came a moving, even teary homage.
Up on the Fairmont screens came the image of Peter Jennings, the Canadian who served as the sole anchor of ABC News from 1983 until his death from lung cancer in 2005.
Both Goldston and Stephanopoulos proclaimed that Jennings was their ongoing inspiration, that he was the best, and that he'd deservedly won all the highest honours awarded to excellence in journalism, Jennings was a legend and a man they both greatly missed.
I can still remember when Peter Jennings died, August 7, 2005. The ABC president then called him "our leader,” "he inspired us.” President Bush said he "helped define the world as we know it today.” The Washington Post called him "superhuman.” TV Guide referred to him as "a center of gravity.”
But Peter Jennings saw himself as a dedicated journalist and confessed on "some days I may be cranky and on some days really cranky.”
He saw news as "a rough draft of history… some days it's reassuring, some days it's absolutely destructive… (our) role is designed to question the behaviour of government officials on behalf of the public.”
So hang in there Goldston and George.
And good on ya Peter Jennings!
