ABSTRACT

In August of 2018, hundreds of US newspapers participated in a coordinated editorial campaign to response to President Trump’s attacks on the news media. We examine the full text of 260 of these editorials to explore their discursive strategies during this high profile instance of “information politics” (Carlson [2018]. “The Information Politics of Journalism in a Post-Truth age.” Journalism Studies 19 (13): 1879–1888). We find that many editorials emphasized journalistic professionalism, along with journalism’s accountability role. Many also openly signaled their participation in the coordinated, nationwide effort, while a smaller number characterized the president as an autocrat. Conceptually arranging these rhetorical strategies in terms of journalism’s “externality” and “centrality” in relation to politics (Carlson 2018), the findings suggest that while the effort overall reflected journalism’s continued striving to appear independent of politics, quite a few newspapers positioned themselves in open confrontation with the president, thus potentially placing themselves within politics. Our findings also suggest that some of the editorials’ most combative rhetoric was related to prevailing local political sentiments. We conclude by assessing the dilemmas for US journalists of engaging in Trump’s style of information politics: In a profoundly polarized context, journalism may struggle with how to rebut populist attacks without seeming to enter the partisan fray and thus appearing to confirm populist claims.

摘要

2018年8月，数百家美国报纸参加了一项协调的社论活动，以应对特朗普总统对新闻媒体的袭击。我们检查了其中260篇社论的全文，以探讨在“信息政治”这一备受关注的实例中的话语策略（Carlson [2018]。“后真时代的新闻业的信息政治”。）新闻学研究19（13）：1879-1888）。我们发现，许多社论都强调新闻专业性，以及新闻业的责任制。许多人还公开表示他们参与了全国范围的协调努力，而少数人则将总统描述为独裁者。从新闻学相对于政治的“外部性”和“中心性”的概念上安排这些修辞策略（卡尔森，2018年），研究结果表明，尽管总体上的努力反映了新闻学继续努力独立于政治，但仍有相当多的报纸将其定位为与总统进行公开对抗，因此有可能使自己陷入政治。我们的发现还表明，某些社论中最具战斗力的言论与当地主流政治情绪有关。