Here & Now

Journalism Professor Discusses President Trump, Press

Frederica Freyberg:

The term “alternative facts” has become part of the political lexicon this week, compliments of Trump spokesperson Kellyanne Conway. We take a closer look now at the ongoing tug-of-war over the truth between the White House press corps and President Trump. Here to help is UW-Madison School of Journalism Professor Michael Wagner. Thanks for being here.

Michael Wagner:

My pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:

What was your reaction when you heard Kellyanne Conway describe as alternate facts the crowd numbers that Donald Trump was talking about at his inauguration?

Michael Wagner:

Well I thought that was a pretty ridiculous thing to say. It is completely clear to anybody with eyes that one crowd was larger than the other. Is it important that more people went to Barack Obama's first inaugural than Donald Trump’s? No, it isn’t. But is it important that people who work for the president of the United States and the president himself can say, “This group was larger than that group” and be honest about it? Yes. That’s important to be able to do. It’s the kind of thing that when she said that I think it decreased the amount of trust that the news media and the public had in the information the White House is putting out.

Frederica Freyberg:

When is an alternative fact a lie?

Michael Wagner:

When it’s not a fact. You can have alternative facts. You can say, well, if we’re looking at education numbers and say we might look at test scores as one fact and we might look at graduation rates as another fact. And they might lead us to different conclusions. But here the way she was using alternative fact was to say what we’re going to do is we’re going to cut off part of the photograph and keep evidence away from you that reveals the truth. That is not a fact. That’s a lie.

Frederica Freyberg:

So there’s a big difference between that and cherry-picking, which politicians do all the time to make their case.

Michael Wagner:

Sure. Politicians will regularly pick the best numbers available to make their policies or performance in office look good. This is a different kind of thing.

Frederica Freyberg:

So if this is to persist, what is the responsibility on the part of the press corps or all journalists in covering this administration?

Michael Wagner:

I would say relentless aggressive truth-telling, as specific as possible. And so one thing that a lot of reporting about say the size of the inaugural crowd has done has tried to point out, so we have the photographs, which tell a clear story, but there are other ways to look at the number of viewers of the inaugural in terms of who watched on television, who streamed it on the internet and reporters have done a good job of telling those stories as well. But I think what’s really important here is for journalists to be relentless and aggressive in pursuing the verifiable truth. On some of these scores they’ve done a good job in the early weeks. At other times the administration gets away with things that they shouldn’t.

Frederica Freyberg:

Because one of your concerns, if they will talk about alternative facts that have to do with this thing that was demonstrably false and kind of small as in crowd numbers, what are your concerns about using this kind of method on the part of Kellyanne Conway or others on larger issues?

Michael Wagner:

Well, the first concern is what else are you going to be willing to lie about and are those going to be more important things, more consequential things for the country. The other thing is that it really diminishes our trust in our government. It also diminishes trust in the news media because the administration is attacking the news media relentlessly. One of President Trump’s advisors, Steve Bannon said that the news media are the opposition party, which is a remarkable and incorrect thing to say about the role of the news media in a democracy. So one worry is about diminished trust in our institutions. If we can’t trust what facts are, if we can’t agree on what the truth is and what the truth isn’t, it becomes very difficult to successfully live in a republican democracy.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, another thing that Donald Trump has pushed is this idea that up to five million people committed voter fraud in this past election and, you know, people have said this is false. It isn’t the same as those photographs, but experts and even other members of his party say that this is false. But do you think that he’s using that kind of falsehood to push policy? It’s like a different thing than his, quote, obsession with crowds and ratings?

Michael Wagner:

I think it’s partially to push policy, especially related to some of his ideas about immigration, whether it’s building a wall between the United States and Mexico or preventing refugees from countries that are in difficult shape from entering the United States. So there’s some policy about it. But it’s also — one thing that he does to divert attention from other things. If there’s negative news, we usually get a really amazing statement that ends up not passing the truth test from the president. We got it on the campaign trail and we’re getting it now that he’s in the White House.

Frederica Freyberg:

So we have to watch closely.

Michael Wagner:

We certainly do.

Frederica Freyberg:

Michael Wagner, thanks very much.

Michael Wagner:

My pleasure.