When the media is dishonest, only the dishonest can disarm them.
I don’t care how Trump becomes president. I only care that he becomes president.
Jack Shafer writes: The interview is the Niagara that fills the news ocean. A quick check of the front page of the New York Times, a scan of any 30-minute block of CNN, or a few clicks on the POLITICO home page establish it: For generations, the interview has been a linchpin of the Fourth Estate, a way for journalists to assemble the authoritative story of who our leaders are, sort the false from the true, and hold power accountable. Conducted in person, over the phone, via email, and over Skype, the interview has become indispensable to the free press and especially to political journalists, who depend on it to X-ray politicians for the truth.
But in 2016, the interview appears to have met its match: Over the past 12 months of the presidential campaign, Donald Trump has dulled its power with his systematic evasions, contradictions and deceptions, making a general mockery of the form. Thanks to his skills at quibbling, his talent for the nonsequitur, and his willingness to reverse himself inside a single sentence, Trump has figured out how to soften rather than sharpen public discourse every time he is interviewed, blurring it into yet another form of meaningless PR, and—if he continues—destroying a journalistic institution in the process.
