COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW – 06/05/2020
Jon Allsop
THE CONSTITUTION HOLDS that the president shall, from time to time, conduct a spurt of interviews with mainstream news outlets before going back to Fox. Or something like that. We’re currently seeing one of those spurts. Last week, Trump gave an interview to Reuters in the Oval Office; on Monday, he granted the same privilege to the New York Post. Yesterday, the president traveled to Phoenix—his first long trip out of Washington since the crisis brought on by COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, intensified—to visit a factory that makes face masks. (Trump did not wear a mask; outside, his supporters harassed local reporters who were wearing them.) While he was in town, Trump sat for an interview with David Muir, who anchors World News Tonight on ABC. It wasn’t the first time Trump has called on ABC for a non-Fox broadcast interview; last year, he gave 30 hours of access to George Stephanopoulos.