As the second Trump administration takes office, journalists are tasked with covering a wave of executive orders, cabinet confirmation hearings, presidential pardons, and more.
To see how political reporters are meeting the moment, the Institute reached out to Matt Berman, managing editor at NOTUS, a nonprofit newsroom covering the White House, Congress, and federal agencies. Before joining NOTUS, Berman was the senior politics editor for BuzzFeed News, where he oversaw reporting on the 2018 and 2020 elections and the Trump presidency.
Here are his tips for covering Trump 2.0.
What is your process for staying up to date and organized during major breaking news events like Inauguration Day?
Berman: Having done a version of this dance before, I believe the best way we can stay organized as a newsroom is by getting our reporters as prepared as possible for a slew of different possibilities — like having staff ready with sources and reporting if certain orders come down — while embracing the unexpected. Planning is great. Overplanning to the extent you lose flexibility, not great! We tried to make sure each of our reporters knew what they were individually responsible for coming into Inauguration Day, while knowing that news can and will explode plans.
I know it’s still early, but how do you expect covering the second Trump administration to be different than the first time?
Berman: I think one of the biggest traps we can fall into as news organizations is thinking too much about what happened the first time around. It’s really easy to think, “OK, this person from Trump 1 is like this person from Trump 2, and this is what happened to them so this is what we should be watching out for now.” I think that’s a mistake. It limits our capacity for surprise and sets us up to approach radical events with a jaded perspective.
It’s a cliché at this point, but I do think the first Trump administration really showed the importance of newsrooms learning to pick-and-choose their spots to focus in on, and to accept letting go of stories or news events that don’t make sense for your audience or where you lack a true value-add. That’ll be a process for us, as I imagine it will be for everyone — it’s hard to do, but regularly stepping back to question our coverage plans and approach will be vital.
Where would you like to see journalists focus more of their attention when covering Trump 2.0?
Berman: I’m excited to see more reporting about what is driving Trump’s decisions, who is influencing him and his administration, and to what end. I expect to read a lot more about the policies he pursues, why they’re designed the way they are, and what effects they have. I want to read more reporting about how exactly he uses his power, and how that intersects or collides with others — in Congress, in the judiciary, in the states.
We are keeping a particular focus on the federal-state interplay at NOTUS right now, with reporting on individual congressional delegations that we hope will give insight into who is behind big policy and political moves that make meaningful changes across the country.
Having covered multiple presidential administrations, what advice can you give emerging journalists who are reporting on a president for the first time?
Berman: Don’t listen to advice from anyone who thinks they know what’s going to happen over the next four years, or four days. Hold on to your curiosity and willingness to be surprised. Try not to be rigid in how you think, how you approach sourcing, or what shape a story might take. Find something that gives you a lot of questions — a sub-beat, a reporting lane, a storyline — and own it, with frequent stories, from different angles, and go where the news is.
Don’t give your opinion. Don’t withhold news. Stay neutral!