BBC's National Radio Service Talks With Prof. Jeff McCall '76 About White House-Press Feud
November 9, 2018
The ongoing feud between President Trump and the reporters who cover the White House is bad for all sides, especially the citizenry, DePauw University's Jeff McCall told BBC Radio 5 Live. In an interview conducted with Dr. McCall, professor of communication, by phone last night, Indiana time, and aired in the U.K. early this morning, Richard Foster sought analysis on Wednesday's White House news conference. A confrontation between the president and CNN's Jim Acosta led to the revocation of the reporter's press badge.
"President Trump is engaging the press in a way that's not helpful," McCall told the BBC's national radio service. "I don't think that it serves his purposes; I don't think it serves the needs of the citizenry, either. But having said that, I'm not sure that the press is responding in the right way."
The DePauw professor noted, "President Trump needles the press, and in a sense they take the bait and respond by trying to be antagonistic back." The news conference came a day after "the Republican Party, Trump's party, lost the House of Representatives, but so much of the talk in the last 24 hours has been about Trump fighting the media again. And so, in a sense, that battle that Trump is running with the press maybe serves his purposes in a way because it distracts people from what should be a more legitimate news agenda, in my opinion."
Media outlets "need to rise above these range wars with the president," McCall added, "and focus on a news agenda that serves the interests of the citizenry. In a sense the press has to step forward and say, 'This is not about us anymore, this is about serving the news needs of the nation."
A portion of the broadcast is embedded below; hear the entire segment at the BBC's website (Professor McCall appears about 17 minutes into the program).
A 1976 graduate of DePauw and a former journalist, Jeffrey M. McCall returned to the University in 1985 as a faculty member. He is regularly quoted in stories on media matters and was cited recently in a Washington Times article on Hillary Clinton's recent television appearances and talked with Southern California's KPCC-FM about free speech issues. A clip is embedded below.