At 20 years old, I have reported on the president of the United States.
This is no small accomplishment, and something that I will remember and take with me throughout the rest of my journalism career.
President Donald Trump held a rally in the Lehigh Valley about 10 minutes away from our campus on Oct. 26. It was incredibly dreary, rainy and cold, yet plenty of supporters came from near and far. Social distancing protocols were thrown out the window; some people were wearing masks, some were not.
With eight days before the election, myself and my Brown and White colleagues stood in the White House press pool, along with local journalists and well-known CNN journalists, reporting on the sitting president.
We spoke with supports before the rally began. As a journalist, I’m constantly in the pursuit of understanding how everyone feels about a certain issue, regardless of what side of the political aisle they fall. The only way we learn and grow is by engaging in rhetoric, and journalists are vital to facilitating these conversations.
As Trump walked out on the stage, supporters went wild. He took the podium and spoke directly to the Lehigh Valley.
Trump spoke for about an hour and multiple times throughout his speech he called out “the fake news media,” in which the entire crowd would turn around, point at the press, boo and shout.
We were like pigs in a pen, standing on secured risers, while rally-goer screamed at us, “fake news,” denouncing the press.
As a journalism student, it was incredibly disheartening to watch the president implore such a distrust in the fundamentals of journalism, deeming it fake.
In my journalism classes I am taught to be objective, fair and leave my biases out of the picture.
My biases were completely thrown out the window in this scenario, as I took an uncomfortable leap to attend an event very much outside of my typical reporter duties, especially unique given the pandemic.
It’s hard to be a journalist. It’s hard to keep your biases to yourself. I’m sick of keeping my opinions to myself, but I do it for the sake of fair reporting. The last thing we want in our reporting is bias, and we work very hard to remain nonpartisan.
I left the Trump rally upset that our president utilizes his power to establish such a strong distrust in journalists, when I see my role as a truth teller for all. Aside from the disappointment, we were still excited to share our reporting with the Lehigh community.
While Trump’s supporters booed and shamed us for our reporting, so did our readers.
On one of our Instagram posts of supporters at the rally, we received numerous comments denonuncing our “pushing of Trump’s propaganda,” comments to “remain neutral” and that we were “a sick joke of a paper.”
Other users commented back that it was “news coverage,” and that our reporting was “by no means an endorsement,” while it would have been “ridiculous to suggest that the Lehigh University newspaper shouldn’t report on the news in the Lehigh Valley.”
As journalists, we receive criticism all the time. Having thick skin is a necessary skill to be in this industry.
But this time, we were being attacked for simply reporting the news.
We were not supporting Trump, as we as an Editorial Board agreed not to endorse either candidate throughout this election. We were simply reporting on the president being in our battleground area with days before the election.
The president denounced the media as fake, our readers were ridiculing us for our reporting. There was no winning, no pleasing anyone.
It’s clear there is more divide now than ever in our country. It’s clear people are frustrated with the media.
But take a second before you react to the news. Understand your sources. Know when a reporter is being biased, but know when a reporter is doing their job: reporting.
You can’t have the best of both worlds and be a biased reporter. While I would love to attach my opinion to my work, I know my role is to serve the public with the facts and the truth so that we may all come to our own independent conclusions.
I am not going to apologize for my reporting, and I will continue to report accurately and fairly, leaving my personal biases aside.
4 Comments
Gabrielle, I read your piece with great interest. You seem to have learned early in your journalistic career that it’s not always easy to do your job as it should be done. If you follow your instincts to report the news, it will serve you well. While I often cringe when the President attacks the press (and others) it seems to me if more reporters followed your principles he wouldn’t have so many easy targets.
Best wishes.
Excellent editorial, if you continue in the news field, I hope you can maintain the professionalism you have now.
I don’t always communicate my generally high opinion of The Brown and White (B&W) but I think the election coverage has been very comprehensive, professional and fair. For some reason I think the current editor in chief is very accomplished and I think his professionalism has rubbed off on the rest of the staff. Your essay lays out the problems in our society as it currently exists, where reasonable and factual reports are attacked by both sides of the political spectrum. President Trump on the right does so by creating “alternative universe” truths to pander to his supporters for political gain. I assume those on the left are agitated by activists telling them that they are to oppose anything that differs from their “party line” which of course is unassailable truth. Hidden in the bombast are rational differences between reasonable people.
“Reality is irrelevant; Perception is everything.” is the prevailing Modus Operandi to GET WHAT YOU WANT. Reality seems to be that America is severely split. My guess is that if things continue along that path our nation is in for big trouble. Just as the country’s First Fathers, we need to make compromises to enable survival. B&W should be a source of information with which to make informed decisions and when needed, compromises.
Gail Collins wrote this in her editorial titled “Questions still linger after only one week: “how the hell could American voters have picked Trump to begin with? And how, after four years of his Fib-a-Minute administration, could they have come even remotely close to reelecting him?”. She answers with “entertainment quotient” with some additional expounding. Her editorial is entertainment, just what she decries in writing it.
I challenge B&W to answer those questions as journalists not as entertainers. Over 70 million people voted for soon to be former president Trump and there are some very important reasons why many did so. What is the reality of this election there are many places to go for the perception.
Gabrielle – thank you for stepping outside your comfort zone to report news. I am an avid consumer of news and finding adequate information to understand both sides of a story is difficult. Opinions get better ratings for sure, but most of us would like to form our own opinions based on unbiased reporting. It may get tougher in the real world but I urge you to keep your standards high and improve journalism. Thank you.
Good article Gabrielle as you appear to truly be balanced in your pursuit of journalism.
Unfortunately, your predecessors have set a different course in most circumstances hence the President’s scolding of the media.
He wasn’t scolding you as you are still in training to become a professional journalist. You just happened to be able to sit in their section. CNN & NBC are not in any way the fair & balanced media you aspire to achieve. The President is correct in calling them out for that. You should be doing so as well & hopefully this is a learning experience for you.
The backlash you got from the liberal left anti Trump crowd is evidence of that reporting since that is the media they listen to regularly along with the NYTimes & Washington Post or even The Morning Call.
So keep your ambition focused on balanced reporting & the B&W will be better for your service during your intern experience toward professional status.
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