WATCHING TRUMP’S WAR ON MY BELOVED PROFESSION IS PAINFUL, AND DANGEROUS

Politicians on both sides of the aisle complained about my stories innumerable times over my decades of on-air reporting at the local ABC television station in Chicago. It went with the territory. 

   I thought I was being fair, balanced and accurate. They didn’t.  Tempers flared. Threats flew. But things eventually calmed down. I kept reportin, they kept politicking, and the beat went on. 

   But what we’re living through now is something more corrosive, more calculated, and far more dangerous.

   The modern right-wing assault on journalism—led, refined, and weaponized by President Donald Trump—is not mere criticism. It is a sustained campaign to convince millions of Americans that any fact they dislike is fake, any reporter who asks hard questions is corrupt, and any institution that checks power is the enemy.

    We have seen it repeatedly. Trump recently lashed out at “60 Minutes” and attacked veteran journalist Norah O’Donnell for legitimate questions he didn’t like. 

   He called again for the firing of talk show host Jimmy Kimmel over an objectionable monologue riff.

  He’s filed, and sadly settled, multimillion dollar lawsuits against TV networks, and called for perceived offenders to lose their broadcast licenses.  

   Failed Arizona and Trump administration right-winger Kari Lake used confrontational attacks on Jake Tapper and other mainstream interviewers in hopes of resuscitating her sinking political fortunes.

  And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has regularly disparaged and dislodged veteran Pentagon reporters and other members of the Washington press corps as if asking questions were itself an act of disloyalty.

   This is part of a broader propaganda agenda: Portraying Democrats and the political left not as opponents to be debated, but as radical, destructive, anti-American enemies. Once fellow citizens are cast as traitors or terrorists, facts become irrelevant and compromise becomes surrender.

   That poison spreads fast because social media and now AI are built for outrage, not accuracy. A lie or fake picture wrapped in anger travels farther and faster than an occasional correction, and nothing on Facebook, X and other platforms is fact-checked. 

   Anonymous accounts, partisan influencers, and algorithm-driven echo chambers buoyed by AI-generated images put distortions on a loop until they feel true. By the time responsible journalists publish sourced reporting, many people have already chosen their preferred fiction.

  I spent enough years in newsrooms to know journalists are hardly perfect. We make mistakes. We deserve scrutiny. But there is a world of difference between legitimate criticism and a cynical strategy to destroy trust altogether.

   When citizens no longer believe anyone, the loudest demagogue wins. If every source is suspect, then evidence means nothing. If truth is just another opinion, accountability disappears. That is exactly the environment where autocracy and corruption in TrumpWorld thrive.

  The tragedy is that many hardworking local reporters—covering city government, elections, school boards, police blotters and public spending—get swept into this national smear campaign. They’re not elites plotting in secret. They’re often underpaid professionals trying to tell communities what their governments are doing.

  But all too often their diligent, fact-based reporting is dismissed as fake news.

   Democracy doesn’t require blind trust in the media—we have to earn it every day—but it does require enough shared respect for facts to let us argue honestly about solutions. Without that, we are left shouting past one another in a fog of suspicion.

   The media will hopefully survive this era of criticism. It always has. But if truth itself becomes endlessly partisan, the country will continue its slide into dystopia. 

   I wish I had answers to offer or solutions to suggest. That’s what we’re supposed to do in these columns. But my preternatural optimism has been badly shaken, and I’ve become uncharacteristically depressed by the current political and media landscape. 

   Newspapers are folding or at best shrinking. TV and radio news too, including one of my faves: CBS radio news at the top of every hour shockingly cancelled. And there is no plan to edit, control or fact-check internet distortions.

   I sincerely hope this unsettling shift to an unhealthy dissemination and filtered flow of information is temporary, and perhaps elections will eventually usher in a new generation of politicians who understand the importance of supporting and protecting independent, fact-based journalism in a democratic society. 

  I may not be around long enough to applaud it, so maybe I’ll write or record reactions that could be posted later—hopefully unedited.

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Andy Shaw is a semi-retired Chicago journalist and good government watchdog. Email thoughts and comments to andyshawchicago@gmail.com