A Missed Opportunity? President Trump, the Truth Sandwich, and News Coverage Across an Ideological Spectrum

A Missed Opportunity? President Trump, the Truth Sandwich,
and News Coverage Across an Ideological Spectrum

¹Linda Jean Kenix & ²Jovita Manickam
¹University of Canterbury, New Zealand
²University of Auckland, New Zealand

Abstract

Many within mainstream news media wondered aloud and in print how to cover President Trump who, they purported, frequently distorted the truth. Although President Trump is no longer in office, this research remains vitally important for understanding how the press covers the office of the Presidency when the veracity of information is in question. During President Trump’s tenure, the ‘truth sandwich,’ was suggested as a technique, whereby a fact is first stated in a news article, then a quote of the false assertion, followed by the fact again. This research aimed to explore the presence of the truth sandwich in an ideological range of news content. These findings have implications for the future coverage of Presidencies in the United States, and for governments in other countries, where the veracity of information is questionable.

Keywords: Truth sandwich, President Trump, Ideology, news

References

Agility PR Solutions. (2017). Top 15 U.S. Newspapers by Circulation. Retrieved from https://www.agilitypr.com/resources/top-media-outlets/top-15-daily-american-newspapers/

Allen, H., & Savigny, H. (2012). Selling scandal or ideology? The politics of business crime coverage. European Journal of Communication, 27(3), 278-290.

AllSides. (2018a). New York Post. Retrieved from https://www.allsides.com/news-source/new-york-post

AllSides. (2018b). Wall Street Journal – News. Retrieved from https://www.allsides.com/news-source/wall-street-journal-media-bias

AllSides. (2018c). Washington Post – News. Retrieved from https://www.allsides.com/news-source/washington-post-media-bias

Altheide, D. (1976). Creating reality: How TV distorts events. Beverly Hills: Sage.

Beam, R. A., Weaver, D., & Brownlee, B. J. (2009). Changes in professionalism of U.S. journalists in the turbulent twenty-first century. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 86(2), 277-298. doi: 10.1177/107769900908600202

Berkowitz, D. (2000). Doing double duty: Paradigm repair and the Princess Diana What-A-Story. Journalism, 1(2), 125-143. doi: 10.1177/146488490000100203

Blake, A. (2014). Ranking the media from liberal to conservative, based on their audiences. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/10/21/lets-rank-the-media-from-liberal-to-conservative-based-on-their-audiences/

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in Psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 32(2), 77-101.

Chalaby, J. K. (1996). Journalism as an Anglo-American invention European Journal of Communication, 11(3), 303-326.

Cision. (2014). Top 10 US Daily Newspapers. Retrieved from http://www.cision.com/us/2014/06/top-10-us-daily-newspapers/

CNN. (2018). How to make a ‘truth sandwich’. CNN. Retrieved from https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2018/06/17/how-to-make-a-truth-sandwich-rs.cnn/video/playlists/reliable-sources-highlights/

Conover, P., & Feldman, S. (1981). the origins and meanings of liberal/conservative self-identification. American Journal of Political Science, 25, 617-645.

Dubner, S. (2012). How Biased is Your Media? Retrieved from http://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-biased-is-your-media/

Edwards, B. T. (2018). President Trump from reality TV to Twitter, or the selfie-determination of nations. Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory, 74(3), 25-45.

Eveland, W. P., & Shah, D. (2003). The impact of individual and interpersonal factors on perceived news media bias. Political Psychology, 24(1), 101-117.

Gamson, W. A. (1992). Talking politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Gitlin, T. (1980). The whole world is watching: Mass media in the making and unmaking of the new left. Berkley: University of California Press.

Heider, D., McCombs, M., & Pointdexter, P. M. (2005). What the public expects of local news: Views on public and traditional journalism. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 82(4), 952-967. doi: 10.1177/107769900508200412

Hertog, J., & McLeod, D. (1995). Anarchists wreak havoc in downtown Minneapolis: A multi-level study of media coverage of radical protest. Journalism Monographs, 151(June), 1-48.

Hester, J B. and Dougall, E. (2007). The efficiency of constructed week sampling for constructed week sampling for content analysis of online news. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 84(4), 811-824.

Illing, S (2018). How the media should respond to Trump’s lies: State of the Union edition. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/2018/11/15/18047360/trump-state-of-the-union-speech-2019-george-lakoff

IPFS. (2018). List of newspapers in Australia by circulation. Retrieved from https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_Australia_by_circulation.html

Jones, J., & Himelboim, I. (2010). Just a guy in pajamas? Framing the blogs in mainstream US newspaper coverage (1999-2005). new media & society, 12(2), 271-288. doi: 10.1177/1461444809342524

Kenix, L. J., & Jarvandi, R. (2019). The Role of Ideology in the International Mainstream News Media Framing of Refugees: A Comparison between Conservative and Liberal Newspapers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. . Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies, 8.3 (November), In Press.

Kilby, A. (2018). Provoking the Citizen: Re-examining the role of TV satire in the President Trump era. Journalism Studies, 19(14), 1934-1944.

Kohut, A. (2004, 11 July 2004). Media myopia: More news is not necessarily good news, New York Times.

Lakeland Libary Research Guides. (2016). Point of View. Retrieved from http://library.lakelandcc.edu/PDFs/research/bias.pdf

Lischka, J. (2019). A badge of honour? Journalism Studies, 20(2), 287-304.

McDevitt, M., & Ferrucci, P. (2018). Populism, journalism, and the limits of reflexivity: the case of Donald J. President Trump. Journalism Studies, 19(4), 512-526.

McVittie , C., & McKinlay, A. (2018). ’Alternative facts are not facts’: gaffe announcements, the President Trump administration and the media. Discourse & Society, 1-16.

Media Bias/Fact Check. (2018a). New York Post. Retrieved from https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-post/

Media Bias/Fact Check. (2018b). New York Times. Retrieved from https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-times/

Media Bias/Fact Check. (2018c). Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/wall-street-journal/

Memmott, M. (2015). When There’s No Evidence To Support A Claim, We Should Say That. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/memmos/2015/11/25/605696776/when-there-s-no-evidence-to-support-a-claim-we-should-say-that

Memmott, M. (2018). Let’s put “truth sandwiches’ on our menu. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/memmos/2018/06/20/621753252/lets-put-truth-sandwiches-on-our-menu

Messina, S. R. (2018). Airing live risks error: responsible journalism in the President Trump era. Journal of Media Ethics, 33(2), 94-94.

Mourão, R. R., Thorson, E., Chen, W., & Tham, S. M. (2018). Media repertoires and news trust during the early President Trump administration. Journalism Studies, 19(13), 1945-1956.

Parks, P. (2020) The Ultimate News Value: Journalism Textbooks, the U.S. Presidency, and the Normalization of Donald Trump, Journalism Studies, 21:4, 512-529, DOI: 10.1080/1461670X.2019.1686413

Peiser, J. (2018). New York Times Co. reports revenue growth as digital subscriptions rise. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/business/media/new-york-times-earnings.html

Pew Research Center, I. (2018). Newspapers fact sheet. Retrieved from https://www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/newspapers/

Pingree, R., Watson, B., Sui, M., Searles, K., Kalmoe, N. (2018). Checking facts and fighting back: Why journalists should defend their profession. PLoS One, 13(12), e0208600. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208600

Rational Wiki. (2016). The New York Post. Retrieved from http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/New_York_Post

Reese, S. D., Gandy Jr., O. H., & Grant, A. E. (2001). Framing Public Life. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Rosen, J. (2018). It’s time for the press to suspend normal relations with the President Trump presidency. PressThink. Retrieved from http://pressthink.org/2018/06/its-time-for-the-press-to-suspend-normal-relations-with-the-President Trump-presidency/

Rubin, J. (2020). The media should remember key lessons from the Trump era. Washington Post. Retrieved from: https://global-factiva-com.ezproxy.canterbury.ac.nz/ga/default.aspx

Ryan, C., Carragee, K. M., & Schwerner, C. (1998). Media, movements, and the quest for social justice. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 26, 165-181.

Sartwell, C. (2018) ‘Truth Sandwich’? Baloney! Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/truth-sandwich-baloney-1533496472

Schiffer, A. (2000). I’m not THAT liberal: Explaining conservative democratic identification. Political Behavior, 22(4), 293-310.

Schudson, M. (2001). The objectivity norm in American journalism. Journalism, 2(2), 149-170.

Schudson, M. (2019a). Where we are and whither we are tending. Journalism, 20(1), 77-79. doi: 10.1177/1464884918809247

Schudson, M. (2019b). Where we are and wither we are tending. Journalism, 20(1), 77-79.

Sotirovic, M. (2000). Effects of media use on audience framing and support for welfare. Mass Communication and Society, 3, 269-297.

Statista. (2018). Circulation of newspapers in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2017 (in 1,000 copies). Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/529060/uk-newspaper-market-by-circulation/

Street, J. (Ed.). (2001). Mass media, politics and democracy. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Sullivan, M. (2018). Instead of President Trump’s propaganda, how about a nice ‘truth sandwich. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/instead-of-President Trumps-propaganda-how-about-a-nice-truth-sandwich/2018/06/15/80df8c36-70af-11e8-bf86-a2351b5ece99_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.cc75e7cc50d0

Tankard Jr., J. W., Hendrickson, L., Silberman, J., Bliss, K., & Ghanem, S. (1991). Media Frames: Approaches to Conceptualization and Measurement. Paper presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Boston.

Thompson, J. B. (1990). Ideology and modern culture: Critical social theory in the era of mass communication. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Tuchman, G. (1978). Making news: A study in the construction of reality. New York: Free Press.

Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2018). Media coverage of shifting emotional regimes: Donald President Trump’s angry populism. Media, Culture & Society, 40(5), 766-778.

Wikipedia. (2016). The New York Times Political Stance. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times#Political_stance

Xu, E. (2020) A generalisable model for frame identification: towards an integrative approach, Communication Research and Practice, 6:3, 245-258, DOI: 10.1080/22041451.2020.1759925

Zelizer, B. (1993). Has communication explained journalism? Journal of Communication, 43(4), 80-88. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01307.x

Zelizer, B. (2018). Resetting journalism in the aftermath of Brexit and President Trump. European Journal of Communication, 33(2), 140-156.

Linda Jean Kenix is Head of the School of Language, Social, and Political Sciences at University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Prof. Kenix is interested in the visual and textual media representation of marginalized groups, the reasons for, and the consequences of that representation. She has been a visiting research fellow at the Oxford University, University of Cambridge, Monash University and the University of Valencia.

Jovita Manickam is a Masters graduate from the University of Auckland in the Media, Film and Television Studies Programme. She is presently a Volunteer and Event Coordinator for Breast Cancer Foundation New Zealand.

Correspondence to: Linda Jean Kenix, Media and Communication Department, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800 Christchurch, New Zealand 8140.