Trump's trial reveals details about how the previous president thinks about and exploits the media

The first week of testimony will end former President Donald Trump's trial in New York City on allegations that he falsified business records to cover up hush money payments to an adult film star with a view to avoid reporting the payments as campaign-related expenses.

In a discussion that quickly moved to topics far outside the courtroom itself, The Conversation US spoke Tim Bakkena former New York prosecutor and now a legal scholar who teaches at West Point, and Karrin Vasby Andersona political communications scholar at Colorado State University, on the week's events.

Her focus this week was on the best way Trump and other politicians interact with the US media and the way their interactions impact democracy itself.

Trump's dealings with the media

Anderson: Testimony within the case thus far suggests that Donald Trump believes that an inexpensive technique to control or shape the news cycle is to pay media professionals. This is a departure from what politicians typically do, which is to rent media strategists to assist them shape their message and political program in order that they receive positive media coverage.

Trump's approach is far more transactional. When he was president, the Columbia Journalism Review noted that he was the “unprecedented step” of revoking the press credentials of members of the White House press corps who had reported unfavorably on him.

And some journalists appear to be taking their cue from Trump.

Earlier this week, in a Truth Social post, Trump attributed the next quote to Fox News host Jesse Watters: “They're catching undercover liberal activists lying to the judge to get on the Trump jury.” That's what they found New York Times out Trump embellished the quote: The words “to get on the Trump jury” weren’t in Watters' initial report.

It's not surprising that Trump would embellish or change a quote. What is actually astounding is that Watters, on reflection, essentially left Trump the role of editor in reporting and characterizing this case.

Regardless of how the court rules, I believe the typical American ought to be concerned that Trump views the free press from a transactional perspective. Trump is careful about who he will pay off, who he can threaten or intimidate into telling the story he wants.

Trump's response to criticism

Bakken: Trump says the media makes the identical distortions he does when he says things that border on untruths or are untruths.

Uri Berliner, a former NPR editor, made essentially the identical allegations in a recent online column, concluding that NPR's reporting is influenced by the private identities and characteristics of its journalists. Essentially, in keeping with Berliner, NPR could distort reality, albeit in additional subtle ways than Trump, due to journalists it hires, the sources the journalists cite, and the stories the editors cover, to the detriment of NPR Trump.

Trump appears to be responding to what he perceives because the media, including NPR and The Washington Post, by calling him names like “authoritarian“, including from characterizes his speech as an motion.

As a candidate and as a defendant, Trump can point to verifiable facts that time to possible injustice. For example, he’s tried by a jury chosen in a judicial district through which Democrats outnumber Republicans 9 to 1. And the article on NPR said 87 NPR editors are registered members of the Democratic Party and none are Republicans – although at the least there are some not a member of either party.

Perhaps he’s saying that being singled out by the democratic institutions – that are alleged to see each side – because he’s a dissenter or a communicator who’s different from other people is just as big a threat to democracy.

Anderson: The concern I express in regards to the Jesse Watters case isn’t that he was friendly toward Trump. It's because Watters modified his reporting to suit Trump's narrative after Trump misquoted him.

Trump tweeted something that was a lie: He said, “Jesse Watters said 'XYZ,'” and Watters didn't – Trump complemented Watters' words. That would have been an issue for Trump because he would have been caught misquoting Watters. So Watters fixed that by going back and adopting Trump's words.

The bottom line is that over the course of his campaign and presidency, Trump has shown a willingness to influence the press in ways in which other politicians haven’t.

Trying to get the media to present you a friendly news frame is politics as usual. Paying individuals with secret deals or intimidating or punishing journalists is something completely different. Regardless of whether Trump is convicted of a criminal offense this time, I consider this case illustrates his relationship with the media and shows that he thinks about it in a different way than other individuals who have been president of the United States.

Fight back

Bakken: In 1996 I ran as Democratic candidate for Congress in my home county in Wisconsin. I lost in the first.

I even have experience convincing someone within the media to write down a positive article by giving information to a reporter.

I see no difference in treating a friendly reporter more positively than an unfriendly reporter. You favor a journalist who shares your viewpoint and drawback a journalist who doesn’t share your viewpoint.

By deciding which stories to publish, NPR could also be doing the identical thing as Fox News, except we didn't comprehend it until Berliner spoke out. Both internally and publicly NPR dismissed Berliner's criticism, but his listeners could have had concerns. Since 2020 the variety of The variety of weekly NPR listeners fell from 60 million to 42 million in March 2024in keeping with the New York Times.

It seems to me that Trump is more aggressive against the press than others, but he believes that that is his only approach. Many people join it because they feel a connection to what they consider are not any longer fair institutions.

A difference from the past

Anderson: As someone trained in political communication, I see it as my job to not advocate for either side. But I'll just say: When a presidential candidate misquotes a journalist and the journalist later publishes a second quote that confirms the candidate's misinformation, that's dangerous and we ought to be concerned about it. By the best way, the wrong quote seems to have had an influence One of the jurors resigns because she got bad feedback.

That's not normal. It's not the best way most politicians, Republican or Democrat, handled the national media before Trump.