Ranting On...Lesley Stahl & the Evils of Access Journalism

Lesley Stahl

In a recent conversation with PBS Newshour's Judy Woodruff, longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl said something that was startlingly mundane and yet all too shocking in the era of President Trump.  Stahl was the first journalist to interview then President-Elect Trump after his shocking victory in November of 2016, but she shared an anecdote from a sit-down interview with Trump where it was just she and her boss.  Trump, in the meeting, despite the lack of cameras or an audience other than the two CBS employees who clearly wouldn't be receptive to his bravado, railed against the press, and Stahl called him out on it stating "you've won the nomination, this is getting tired, why are you doing this...it's boring" using perhaps the adjective Trump tries hardest to avoid.  His response was chilling, "You know why I do it?  I do it to discredit you all and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you."  The audience in the room felt hushed, with Woodruff visibly upset and shaking her head.  This is a startling anecdote that any other presidency would have invited weeks, if not months, of scrutiny, and while Trump rarely gives us time for such things, I want to examine it because there's a lot at play in this story, and some of it is genuinely new information to me.

Stahl's story, on its surface, is not all-that-surprising.  It is difficult in the era of Trump to deny that the president outwardly destroys the truth, and has disdain for any press that isn't complimentary.  It's one of the reasons he so rarely is interviewed by "actual" journalists like Stahl, instead preferring to call into the sycophantic Fox and Friends or sit with Sean Hannity.  It's been clear for months that Trump lies, repeatedly and incessantly, about his adversaries (one of which he considers the free press), so really the admitting of the strategy is the story here, not the actual strategy which has been clear for well over two years now.  Trump admitting this to a journalist is the shocking part, but perhaps more disturbing is that we are just now hearing about it from Stahl.

It's not entirely clear from the story when this took place.  Some news organizations seem to indicate that the interview happened immediately after the election, most seem to indicate it occurred sometime beforehand.  Based on how Stahl tells the story, when she recalls telling Trump "you've won the primaries" it likely occurred before the general election, likely in the late summer or early fall (I tried pretty hard to figure out if anyone has asked Stahl or if she later clarified when this interview took place, but couldn't find an exact date).  As a result, Stahl certainly knew about this exchange prior to her first interview with President Trump, and (unless she or her boss clarify otherwise), it appears before the actual general election.  This begs the very sincere question-why didn't Stahl see this as her civic duty to share such an exchange, one that was certainly relevant to the public good, and regardless why didn't she question Trump about this exchange on her program?

There's really no satisfactory explanation that Stahl can provide here.  Her best bet would be that she was off-the-record (in which case it also begs the question as to why she's sharing this now, since that would still apply), in which case that's an entirely different conversation about journalistic ethics.  But let's assume for a moment that a woman who has been a reporter for over 45 years knows well enough to not reveal an off-the-record conversation, and either Trump said this on-the-record or this wasn't explicitly "off-the-record."  If that's the case, Stahl should have reported this.  Particularly in 2016, this would have been a big story still-we weren't as used to Trump's bombast, lying about the press, and quite frankly the Republican nominee (or the president-elect) admitting such a thing to a journalist would have been shocking.  It's still shocking now, but it might have been tangibly important to the national conversation in a way that it simply can't be currently.

Ms. Stahl, interviewing (from left) Tiffany, Donald Jr., Donald Sr,
Eric, Melania, and Ivanka Trump

I can only think of three reasons that Stahl didn't report this at the time.  One, she didn't think it was news...but any quote from a potential president is always news, and this would have made enough headlines it's impossible to think she or the CBS executive she was with wouldn't have wanted the ratings.  Secondly, she didn't want to impact the race and appear biased.  This is perhaps more believable-if this did indeed happen in the run-up to the election, you could argue that Stahl didn't want to put herself in the crossfire of an election cycle.  Lest we forget that in 2004 60 Minutes had a profound influence on the national conversation leading to the Bush-Kerry elections that November, with Bush arguably gaining some points off of 60 Minutes' mishandling of documents surrounding President Bush's tenure in the Texas National Guard.  Stahl may not have wanted to risk her career in the same way her former coworker Dan Rather had twelve years earlier, particularly on a man who would vehemently deny such a charge and without more tangible proof like a tape recording.  This is cowardly, but at least believable.

The most concerning thing, though, is that Stahl didn't do it because she didn't want to lose access to a future president.  Stahl, of course, was the first person to interview President-Elect Trump in a huge scoop for her career (she says as much during the clip with Woodruff).  It's impossible to believe that Trump (or really any member of his administration) would have sat down with Stahl in the future if she'd hurt Mr. Trump's chances of winning the White House.  This is yet another case of "access journalism" hurting the credentials of well-meaning but realistic members of the press.

We see this time-and-time again, particularly with this administration which feels so vindictive to a media that doesn't appear ready to deal with perpetual lies and attacks on the free press.  Witness how someone like Brian Stelter (who got raked-across-the-coals for this on Twitter, including by me) continually puts Kellyanne Conway on his program despite the fact that she shares garbage information and no facts in her anecdotes.  Or see how someone like Andrea Mitchell goes over-the-top attacking Michelle Wolf's calm (and not insulting-at-all) comments about Sarah Sanders' appearance in a way to try to appear "unbiased" against attacks that the entire media is left-leaning.

Stahl, Stelter, and Mitchell are not bad people, they're not even bad journalists.  But this behavior is bad, upsetting, and dangerous, and they should all know better.  The reality is that the free press still hasn't quite figured out that they aren't playing a traditional "cover the story" game with Trump, but that they have become the story and need to fight back in order to remain a cornerstone of democracy.  Stahl should have confronted Trump about his comments publicly.  Stelter shouldn't have a woman he knows will lie on a news program, no matter her title.  Mitchell shouldn't coddle the White House over attacks she surely believes privately are tame.  Trying to curry favor with the Trump White House doesn't do you any good, and that has been proven time-and-time again.  By doing so, you might get a scoop, but you're not hurting those who are lying or making them correct their behaviors-they're on a different foundation than you are right now, and won't change as a result.  By covering up or trying to excuse them, you're just hurting yourselves.  Lesley Stahl is smart enough to realize that "that story" could have been the story that brought down an odious racist man she clearly has no respect for, and she's going to have to live with that for the rest of her career.  Hopefully other journalists won't make the same mistakes.