Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schurenberg, long-time business journalist and executive, now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media. 

What has it meant to be a professional news journalist during the past 10 years? In an era of gleeful hostility to the press, how do reporters cope? How do they avoid becoming the story? How do they handle unprecedented fear for their own safety, and the challenges of covering an administration that sometimes demands followers refuse to believe their own eyes?

Our guest today is Steve Peoples, senior political writer for the Associated Press and a 14-year veteran of presidential campaigns. Few reporters have a clearer view of how the relationship between presidents and the press has transformed in these hyper-partisan years. 

We recorded this live at a session of my virtual University of Chicago course, Presidents vs. the Press. 

Our focus in this class was on the coverage of President Biden, which we are still processing 10 months after he left office, in particular how the press missed the signs of his cognitive decline. Steve is candid about the cause of that failure and about the job ahead for journalists in the age of Biden’s successor, Donald Trump: We cover the dangers of groupthink in the newsroom, the pressure journalists face to skew coverage to maintain access, and why fact-checking in real time is now a core responsibility of the press.

We hope you enjoy the episode...

Website - free episode transcripts
www.in-reality.fm

Alliance for Trust in Media
alliancefortrust.com

Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
soundsapien.com