How to interview Trump while avoiding the mistakes of the past

There are 11 months until Election Day 2024, and the news coverage of Trump has me terrified.

My fears come not only from how Trump is conducting himself but, more importantly, from how his conduct is being covered. It’s clear that few lessons have been learned from Trump’s last two presidential campaigns. Journalists, and the broader media industry, must find a new way to interview and cover him.

The stakes are high. Another media failure could spell the end of our democracy.

The challenge with interviewing Trump is that his way of talking is fundamentally incompatible with the basic assumptions of journalism. Ideally, journalists interview candidates and politicians in pursuit of truth — to accurately characterize a situation, to tease out candidates’ actual feelings and intentions and sometimes hold them accountable to the things they’ve said or done.

But when Trump speaks, he makes no attempt to connect with “truth” or reality of any form. And accountability? Not going to happen.

Instead, when Trump talks, he does so to push his personal brand. It’s critical to understand that his brand was born and fortified in the realms of tabloid media and conversative talk — offshoots of journalism that possess their own unique relationship to truth and reality. He spent the last five decades training in this world, and, in the process, perfected his imaginative story.

That story portrays him as the hero valiantly fighting against the villain who, depending on the day, could be anyone who does not agree with him; the media; or the very institution of democracy itself. Every time Trump speaks, he repaints this character in the minds of his audience, bringing it to life through sheer force of repetition. And every time a journalist pushes back against him, it only affirms the story he’s trying to tell.

This is why the 2016 debates with Hillary Clinton, CNN’s townhall with Trump back in May, and his September interview on “Meet the Press” all ended the same way — and it is why every other interview that follows this format will follow suit. Trump wrestles for control of each conversation and, because he does not play by the same rules, he wins. Every single time. 

The repeated result is that interviews with Trump help him recreate his imaginary character, further strengthening his overarching story.

A different result requires a different approach. There are four general points that journalists should consider before interviewing Trump.

First, never give him live air and never interview him in front of an audience. Trump’s words must always be put in their factual context. This has been called a “truth sandwich,” in which factual reality is explained first, then Trump can be quoted, and then his claims directly compared to the facts. This presents a particular challenge for broadcast news, because putting Trump on live TV is always good for ratings.

Some may argue that fact-checking Trump hasn’t worked much in the past, especially for those who are committed to his cause. This is true. But research shows that the more often people hear a claim, no matter how untrue it may be, the more likely they are to believe it. Researchers call this the “illusory truth effect.” While the Trump faithful won’t be swayed by fact-based reporting, it would be beneficial for the large swath of independent voters still considering whom to support.

This leads to the second point: journalists must be careful — much more than they already are — in choosing when to quote Trump, and when not to. Every time he is quoted, it amplifies his story, and this amplification can lead to very real consequences, like the January 6 insurrection.

Third, any interview with Trump should focus on pragmatic questions about governance. For example, how would his Department of Transportation have handled the I-95 collapse in Philadelphia this past summer? Pragmatic questions do not lend themselves well to the “culture war” plot Trump revels in and leave less space for the kind of unprovable identity claims he relishes.

Finally, journalists must understand the stakes. Political reporting is often called horse race journalism because it frames elections, and governance, as a game in which contestants maneuver for victory, and not as the critically important process of determining our shared values and priorities. This shortchanges the public conversation, turning attention away from the serious issues and ideas we should be focused on.

The horse race approach has always been a disservice to citizens, but the stakes are now too high to keep doing it. One measure of a democracy is how the losing side handles defeat, and recent events have proven that Trump will only accept the legitimacy of the electoral process if it declares him the winner. That, more than anything, is incompatible with journalism, and with the democratic process itself.

But if half the country is entrenched in their support of Trump, then what’s the point of changing how the media covers him? This is a widely held belief, but an inaccurate one. Researchers, including some of my colleagues at Temple University, recently found that in 2020 only 21.5 percent of the electorate were “unwavering” Trump supporters — and, of all voters, that was the only group cocooned in conservative media echo chambers.

That means there is an opportunity for journalists here. The vast majority of Americans still encounter information and ideas circulated by the traditional news media. With reporting and interviews that focus on facts, policy and, yes, reality, voters might have access to the relevant information they need to decide the future of our country. But it all starts and ends with how we, the media, decide to cover Trump for the next year.

Geoffrey Baym is professor of media studies and production and the director of the Doctoral Program in Media and Communications at the Klein College of Media and Communications at Temple University. He is also a former TV news producer for KSL-TV in Salt Lake City.