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The Existential Anxiety of Cable News After Trump

Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper on CNN
Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images
Julia Ioffe
July 30, 2021

In the weeks since I wrote about what the transition from the Trump presidency to the Biden administration has entailed for White House reporters, I’ve gotten some questions about what the change has been like for the people on our television screens. After all, the Trump era was so painfully perfect for television, especially the 24-hour cable news industry. While some of us may have been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of outrage sludge gushing from the White House, it was ideal for cable news, as if there were custom-made sluices channeling all that bile right to the studios across town, up by Capitol Hill. The giant maw of cable must be fed at all times, and it requires a very specific kind of diet: eyeballs, of the loyal and addicted variety. And what feeds the addiction? Drama. Fear. High stakes. There’s a reason for the cliché that networks like CNN love covering plane crashes: it’s true.

Donald Trump was the daily equivalent of fifteen plane crashes. Every day felt like it could be the last day of the Republic, but also like the season finale of the messiest season of Real Housewives. The eyeballs were pouring into the maw in record numbers and the ratings reflected it. As one reporter told me for that first article, “Trump has been good for many journalists professionally, myself included.” It was great for the producers, too: content was plentiful and the line-up of every show was obvious, no need to scramble to fill holes. It was great for the anchors, who became celebrities for their stern sermonizing in defense of the most basic tenets of civilization. It was great for the White House reporters, whose faces appeared constantly, leading seemingly every show, thereby reminding their corporate bosses just how indispensable they were and how highly compensated they should be.