A LETTER TO READERS FROM COLUMBIA SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM
Our Mission in Trump’s Second Term
By Sewell Chan, Editor
Dear Readers,
In his first administration, Donald Trump posed challenges to the press unlike any since the Nixon White House. When he returns, on January 20, 2025, those challenges are going to intensify.
The day after the election, CJR outlined what’s likely to happen in Trump’s second term: Justice Department leak investigations that will pressure journalists to disclose confidential sources, possibly under threat of imprisonment; the use of Federal Communications Commission licensing and antitrust laws to threaten networks and companies that are not to Trump’s liking; the denial of access to the White House, and to public records under the Freedom of Information Act; restrictions on how journalists cover mass protests, as well as border and immigration enforcement.
Attacks on journalists—rhetorical and physical—are going to increase. So will the denigration of the press as “fake” and irrelevant. There may be efforts to surveil journalists, to change defamation laws, even to block stories from publication. As I type, nonprofit newsrooms are gathering to understand whether tax law could be used to intimidate or even shut down independent media, as has occurred overseas.
Under my predecessor, Kyle Pope, CJR vigorously covered the first Trump administration, with special issues devoted to the threats facing journalists, disinformation, and the COVID pandemic and racial justice movement. We will carry on that work, with renewed discipline and purpose, over the next four years.
In rising to the occasion, we do not pretend that all is okay with the press. One week before the election we examined all the reasons liberals are angry with the mainstream media, on top of the perhaps more familiar charges of bias that come from the right.
Critics are already asking whether the press adequately covered the discontent that propelled Trump to a victory in both the popular vote and the Electoral College; whether it continues to uncritically amplify falsehoods; whether it has gotten any better at reaching Americans who feel left out, left behind, or looked down upon; whether reporters are up to the job of covering a deeply divided society with profound regional, urban/rural, educational, class, gender, racial, and ethnic cleavages.
Notably, this was an election in which both major-party nominees bypassed traditional news outlets, communicating to the public via podcasters, influencers, social media personalities, and talk-radio hosts.
We remain committed to serious, thoughtful criticism of the press. We will continue to ask hard questions about the media’s ability to be fair, relevant, engaging, and accessible amid a fragmented information environment and an ongoing blizzard of misinformation and propaganda.
But we’ll do so from a place of wanting American journalism to be better—not tearing it down. As we pursue this work, we won’t lose sight of the goals that I outlined when I started as editor, in September.
The backsliding of American democracy is part of a global phenomenon, with establishment parties and incumbents under siege everywhere from Poland to Turkey to Brazil to the Philippines to India. We will focus on threats facing journalists working worldwide to cover illiberal democracies and authoritarian regimes.
We’ll also focus on local news in the US, recognizing that it’s the area of journalism most trusted by Americans and that the loss of it is directly correlated with apathy, mistrust, and polarization. And we’ll continue focusing on changing business models for news and artificial intelligence because independent journalism can’t survive without financial sustainability.
Donald Trump is one of twelve presidents we’ve covered since the magazine was founded, in 1961, the year John F. Kennedy took office. He won’t be the last. The press is the only profession explicitly mentioned in and protected by the Constitution; we will make use of that license, for as long as we can, in service of our democracy.
To fulfill its mission, CJR needs your ideas and feedback, so please feel free to share them by emailing our team at editors@cjr.org. As a nonprofit publication, housed at Columbia Journalism School, we also need your support to sustain our operations, so please consider a membership or donation today.
In service, Sewell Chan
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