By Renée Graham, The Boston Globe, October 23, 2024.
Call it normalizing or ‘sanewashing,’ but covering the former president as if he’s an ordinary nominee is journalistic malpractice.
Donald Trump did not work the fry station in a McDonald’s on Sunday.
He donned an apron, but the suburban Philadelphia restaurant was closed to the public. He shoveled some fries into a red carton, but no one had ordered them. The only “customers’’ that Trump encountered at the drive-thru window were handpicked Trump supporters. A Pennsylvania reporter caught a shot of a rehearsal for how the drive-thru portion of this silly stunt would be executed.
But not every news report initially bothered to say that this was nothing more than a photo op to amplify Trump’s unproven claim that Vice President Kamala Harris did not work at McDonald’s when she was a college student.
“Trump works the fry station and holds a drive-thru news conference at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s,’’ an Associated Press story said. “Trump mocks Harris’ story from behind the fryer at McDonald’s,’’ an ABC News report said. Neither identified this as a cheap stunt, unlike New York magazine which nailed it in an early Monday headline: “Trump Played Wage Worker at a Closed McDonald’s.’’
A caption under a photo of Trump at the drive-thru window doubled down on the truth — “Trump dispensing prop McDonald’s in Pennsylvania on Sunday.’’ This was the only way to cover this nonstory.
On that same weekend but overshadowed, Trump branded former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Adam Schiff of California, a Democratic Senate nominee, with his favorite new smear, “an enemy within,’’ and referred to Harris with a profane adjective. But his strange tangent at his rally about the late golf legend Arnold Palmer’s genitalia was reported as if he’d finally unveiled his “concept of a plan’’ to replace the Affordable Care Act.
Peg Palmer Wears called Trump’s vulgar comments about her father “disrespectful,’’ “inappropriate,’’ and “unacceptable.’’ When she said “people deserve better,’’ she could have been speaking about media coverage of Trump.
With the frightening possibility that Trump could win the Nov. 5 election, covering him as if he’s a regular presidential nominee doing regular presidential nominee things — or worse, portraying his anger, stunts, and unpredictability as normal — is blatant journalistic malpractice.
Despite his autocratic threats of retribution against political opponents and actions that warrant every serious discussion about the mental cognition of this nation’s oldest presidential nominee, the former president gets graded on a curve. No one else in modern politics has been given more leeway for aberrant behavior than Trump.
But more than Trump being Trump, it’s also about media being attracted to heat, not light. At McDonald’s, Trump was asked whether he supports increasing the federal minimum wage for those scraping by on $7.25 an hour, which is also Pennsylvania’s minimum wage.
“I think these people work hard, they’re great,’’ he said, never coming close to answering the question. “And I just saw something, the process. That’s beautiful, it’s a beautiful thing to see. These are great franchises, they produce a lot of jobs.’’
Too many stories buried what should have been the lede — in wage worker cosplay, Trump refused to answer if he supports raising the minimum wage for real wage workers. It also remains unclear whether the workers at that McDonald’s were paid for the hours when the restaurant was closed for Trump’s stunt.
Politicians staging events for the media isn’t new. To garner positive press as a freshman member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978, LGBTQ trailblazer Harvey Milk held a press conference at a local park to promote his pooper scooper ordinance. As he finished his comments, Milk stepped in a pile of dog poop and showed his soiled shoe to the cameras.
In the documentary “The Times of Harvey Milk,’’ Anne Kronenberg, an aide to Milk, later admitted that her boss planted that poop himself before the press conference. The difference is that the media didn’t know that Milk choreographed the event.
But there’s no excuse for letting Trump, the same man who called his latest billionaire sugar daddy Elon Musk “the greatest cutter’’ for allegedly threatening to fire striking workers, pretend to be a champion of the working class. His only purpose there was to denigrate Harris because her relatable story of working in a fast-food restaurant might appeal to the same voters that Trump needs.
The only thing Trump cooked up and served at McDonald’s were the same old lies about an opponent he wants to portray as being even more mendacious than he is. And to do that, he needs the same compliant media that he despises and threatens but never hesitates to use as an accomplice for his political ends.
Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at renee.graham@globe.com. Follow her @reneeygraham.
Image Credits: The Boston Globe
