The press under pressure

A panel of award-winning journalists gathered in front of hundreds of audience members on the lawn of the Chilmark Community Center on Saturday afternoon, and beneath a large tent on a sunny day, the group discussed what some might consider a much darker topic: the current state of journalism.

As part of the Martha’s Vineyard Book Festival weekend lineup, “The Press Under Pressure: Media’s Shifting Role in Democracy” panel featured a lineup of decorated reporters including NBC news host Chris Hayes, NBC and MSNBC political analyst and former Washington Post White House Bureau Chief Ashley Parker, and Washington Post National Immigration Reporter Maria Sacchetti (Former Washington Post Associate Editor Jonathan Capeheart couldn’t participate in the panel due to flight delays). Former senate advisor and NBC producer and host Lawerence O’Donnell moderated the discussion.

The panel was one of many events in the lineup for the 20th Martha’s Vineyard Book Festival. The two-day annual festival brings a myriad of authors and publishers from across the country to participate in discussions  and give author talks over the weekend. 

The backdrop for Saturday’s panel discussion on the state of journalism comes as the Trump administration has filed lawsuits against multiple news agencies, notably CBS for what the president claimed was edited to tip the scales in Kamala Harris’ favor during the presidential campaign. Trump also filed a libel lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, claiming that the paper falsely reported on a birthday letter that Trump allegedly mailed to convicted child sex offender and deceased financier Jefferey Epstein.  

On the panel, Hayes compares the Trump administration’s actions that are “facially unconstitutional” to salesman’s tactics. These include the Federal Communications Commission’s probes into Comcast-owned NBC Universal’s content and conduct, and the executive order banning international students from attending Harvard University.

“High pressure sales can work even though the salesman has no formal authority over the person they’re selling to,”  he said.

 Parker said that in-depth reporting has become more difficult under Trump’s second term, with his cabinet allegiances having increased since the first term. 

“Just about everyone in that White House is incredibly loyal to him by design,” she said. “That can make some of that inside reporting a lot more challenging.”

O’Donnell raised questions about the conflicts between maintaining the integrity of news organizations and adhering to the interests of their corporate owners.

 “What are we learning in this story, other than massive, complex corporate ownership of news organizations might at some point intersect with a government that will, in effect, force that corporation to follow its corporate heart instead of its news heart?” O’Donnell asked.

Parker expressed her skepticism about how cooperation with the Trump administration will ultimately benefit corporate officials, such as Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos. Bezos, who also attended Trump’s inauguration, has made sweeping changes to the paper’s editorial section since buying the paper. Some of the more contentious decisions included his declaration not to publish any pieces that oppose “personal liberties and free markets,” and cutting a presidential endorsement for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. As a result, Opinions editor David Shipley and many others in the news organization resigned. Parker was one of them.

 “He pushed himself on Trump’s lap at the inauguration,” she said. “He changed what the editorial page is doing, and the outcome is he’s lost all of his columnists. I don’t know what the upside is.”

“There is a sense that the owner and the publisher have contempt for the reporters and the editors in the newsroom,” she added. “At a certain point, some people made the decision that they don’t want to work for people who don’t have a clear business plan and hate them.”

However, Sacchetti, who currently works for The Post, disagreed with Parker. She expressed her pride and faith in The Post’s news section regardless of the paper’s ownership.

“We investigate, we talk to people, we don’t follow the politicians’ rules,” she said “We are without fear, without favor, we report. We will not cave on that in the newsroom.”

Parker later clarified that her comments weren’t directed towards any individuals in the news section.

Sacchetti stressed the challenges that she faces as an immigration reporter, such as accessing Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest and immigration court records. ICE records are considered public information that can be requested through the Freedom of Information Act. However, ICE can omit some information, such as a detainee’s immigration status or criminal record, for privacy reasons. Unlike other court systems, immigration court records are generally not as accessible to the public. 

“There’s no way to really look at the system as a whole beyond statistics and that makes it a really impossible thing to do,” she said. “We just would like to find out and do our basic jobs as immigration reporters. We’ve never been able to do that in the United States.”

Hayes is also the author of The Siren’s Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource. The book, which was a part of the Festival’s lineup, discusses people’s attention as a coveted resource in a system he calls “attention capitalism.” Hayes said that people can be civically engaged without overwhelming themselves with media consumption, suggesting that they designate certain times of day to checking the news.  

“I don’t think you need to pay attention to news every waking moment in order to be a good citizen,” he said. “There is something to be said for making time to do it and consuming it and not having it be a sort of steady drip of poison in your brain all day.”

Elena Olson, former Executive Director of the Center for Diversity and Inclusion at Massachusetts General Hospital, attended multiple panel discussions on Saturday; she said that she particularly liked the journalists’ transparency.

“They spoke truth to power and I loved how they were not shy to give their opinions,” she said. “Many times we don’t get [journalist perspectives] as consumers, but it’s nice to get an insight of what the challenges are for them, so that we can understand the challenges for everybody else.”

Suellen Lazarus, director and founder of the MV Book Festival, said that this year’s festival overall did a good job at integrating the authors’ different works. 

“All the themes came together nicely. The authors came with different perspectives. I think it worked well,” Lazarus said.