Seventy-nine days into a presidential administration that has brought significant challenges to journalism, a group of local leaders in the field convened at USC Annenberg for a conversation on its current state.
“There are new threats almost weekly or even sometimes daily,” said Julie Patel Liss, the president of the Asian American Journalists Association’s Los Angeles chapter and the head of the journalism program at California State University, Los Angeles.
The new Trump administration has already been rocky for the media. President Donald Trump removed the Associated Press’s access to White House proceedings because they refused to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” and only reversed course Tuesday after a judge’s orders.
The president also reduced federal funding for the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) to the “legal minimum,” according to Reuters, due to accusations that the organization is biased against Trump and a waste of government spending.
It’s a series of changes that Shar Jossell, the president of the National Association for Black Journalists’ Los Angeles chapter and a freelance journalist, couldn’t help but admit were effective ones.
“The Trump administration and Trump himself have done such a masterful job at dismantling the very foundation of journalism,” Jossell said. “It started a few years ago with ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’… and I feel like we’re seeing a direct result of those plants that have grown as a result of it, with people specifically looking for confirmation bias or ‘infotainment.’”
Then there are the financial challenges facing newsrooms, an issue that concerns Katie Karl, the co-president of NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists’ Los Angeles chapter and a producer at ABC7 Los Angeles. She argued these budget cuts are an even bigger threat than the White House — though the cuts seriously threaten diversity efforts, another issue that has been attacked under Trump.
“I think the biggest issue is a lot of those cuts, if they’re on the editor level, have been people of diverse backgrounds, of communities that need that voice in those newsrooms,” Karl said.
But not all hope is lost — especially when journalists unite behind a cause.
“When the freedom of the press is threatened, we often do come together and we issue statements and we write letters,” Liss said. “A couple years ago, we got SB 98 passed to ensure that journalists at protests are protected because they were being injured and they were being detained and arrested at protests at incredible numbers after the George Floyd murder.”
Alexa Chidbachian, the president of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Los Angeles chapter, urged the student journalists present to be confident that they can already make a difference, even in times as difficult as this.
“You are a person, and yes, you do have a voice, and you do have power,” Chidbachian said.
Fallon Brannon is a freelance journalist who attended the event, which she says gave her hope and guidance for the future.
“You have a target on your back if you’re a member of a marginalized community,” Brannon said. “To hear their stories, but also what made them keep going and what made them continue to fight against it… definitely helped me and gave me a lot of faith in order to pursue my profession.”
Nathan Vinson, the weekend audience editor at People Magazine and a fellow attendee, had a more positive outlook on the current state of journalism — but it’s a view he said could change soon.
“For myself, I still feel pretty optimistic about where I’m headed in journalism, but I would be ignorant to not think that things have changed the last few months, and I have peers and friends that are struggling,” Vinson said. “So I may be in a decent situation in my job, [but] it doesn’t mean that it will always be that way.”
Perhaps sensing the room’s unease, Chidbachian closed by urging aspiring journalists to continue onward in spite of any setbacks, Trump-inflicted or otherwise.
“I know it’s hard, there’s rough days, and it’s tough, and [it] might not seem like there’s an end in sight,” Chidbachian said. “But it’ll get better.”