Study Group with Bob Cohn: Journalism and Politics in an Age of Disruption

The 2020 election offers an opportunity to explore the relationship between the presidency and the press. We have an incumbent who has encouraged violence against reporters and declared journalists to be enemies of the state. We have a media establishment that now routinely calls the president a liar, whose leading practitioners sometimes turn to social media to decry the commander in chief in terms that traditionalists worry flout the standards of the profession. This turbulence comes against a backdrop of profound transformation in both institutions. Publishers struggle as their long-reliable advertising model collapses, and as powerful platforms like Google and Facebook erode the clout of media brands. New methods of delivering and consuming information create opportunities for media companies, but only the most sure-footed and entrepreneurial can figure it out. Meanwhile, politicians find that digital media can be useful for field organizing, fundraising, and message-delivery, but also that freewheeling direct-to-voter channels can be tricky to navigate.

How will all of this affect the 2020 presidential race, and the coverage of it? This study group will explore the changing realities of both media and politics against what is already shaping up as an extraordinary presidential campaign.