“Insider, access-based coverage was a hallmark of the Trump era. But as a reader of news and a journalist trying to tell stories about policy and identity, these stories were often a distraction. They were full of unnamed sources, so it was often hard to know exactly how to
interpret the information or
if it could be relied upon. (Remember the flawed postelection reporting I referred to earlier.) These stories rarely told deep narratives about policy. They rarely captured the
identity politics of Trump, in part because it was unlikely reporters who described Trump’s words as racist would get access to insiders in his administration.
Access journalism in fact cuts against two of the solutions I described above: reporters of color playing more prominent roles (Trump was
often mean to
Black female reporters in particular, so assessing their job performance based on their ability to get inside information from Trump and his aides wouldn’t make much sense) and less both sides-ism.”
—LO
