NEWS
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Trump dominates media coverage since election
Trump’s administration has saturated the media in recent months. Austin Raymundo News Intern @LALoyolan
Lately, the vast majority of articles pushed to the front pages of the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and even the Los Angeles Loyolan have been centered around or related to the Trump presidency. Since the days of the election, the media has continued to show an inclination towards reporting on Trump and his nontraditional political strategies. According to journalism professor John Kissell, “[Trump] is from a celebrity culture […] He is a celebrity by nature and has been courting attention virtually his whole career, [...] He just is an attention getter, and the media is used to giving it.” And President Trump is seemingly well aware of this. Back in January, he tweeted, “Without me, [the media would] have no ratings.” Journalists across the nation contend that their interests stem from where their obligations lie as reporters. From the Washington Post to National Geographic, a variety of news publications frequently report on news about the Trump administration’s actions. There is also less media coverage of other issues such as international stories and local
issues, and less consumption of non-Trump news. The New York Times reported, for example, that Trump received $2 billion more coverage and was given the most free coverage out of any other candidate. Since news platforms can only report so much, focus on other issues has been reduced. Some experts believe that the media’s focus on a single subject – in this case, Trump– isn’t healthy for the electorate as it ignores other issues. “When’s the last time you saw a major story on poverty?” asked Dr. Michael Genovese, Director of the Institute for Leadership Studies. “When’s the last time you saw a major story about racism in America that hasn’t been sparked by some kind of tragic event. When have we seen stories about the failure of the education system?” In fact, four of the top five Washington Post stories for this week contained Trump in their headlines. Avid readers of the news are becoming discouraged by the amount of Trump coverage and its tone. “My students are required to read the front page of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times every day and analyze it, and I’m definitely hearing some exhaustion from them,” remarked Professor Langlois, a visiting assistant professor of journalism, “all the stories were about Trump except for one, and I noticed a few of them saying, ‘Oh it’s nice to see something about something else.’” Many readers have generally also characterized the tone of the media in regard to Trump as negative. Their reactions in
terms of tuning in or out have been mixed. “I think we know that the public is drawn to bad news but also doesn’t like bad news.” said Dr. John Parrish, professor of political science, “And so the more negative the tone is of media coverage, the more you’d expect two things to happen: one, highly concentrated pockets of immediate focus or interest, and two, a kind of running process of disengagement wherein increasingly more and more people tune out or turn off media coverage just feeling overwhelmed by sort of the
negative vibe of all.” While some Americans remain disengaged and are tuning out, experts are observing Trump trying to pull them back in. Americans avoiding coverage “puts a lot of pressure to entertain and pull in an audience, which means he gets more ridiculous almost with the day,” says Dr. Michael Genovese. Professor Langlois asserted that more Americans are more engaged because of Trump, forcing the media to pay more attention to Trump. Professor Kissell explained, “If you’re paying attention to some
guy, you’re not paying attention to all the other stuff. That’s the shame of a celebrity kind of a culture. Sometimes we focus on the wrong things.” To many media outlets, this is the problem. “The truth isn’t what’s popular, it’s what’s true but the media is in this vicious cycle where if they don’t give the people what they want or demand, people stop watching. And so there’s an incredible pressure on even responsible sources to cave in for financial reasons, because they need to exist,” says Dr. Genovese.
via Flickr Creative Commons
LMU professors have agreed that the media continues to be heavy in Trump administration coverage.
New budget cuts to change education in the U.S. Trump’s new budget for 2018 impacts both teachers and students. Babak Abrishamchian Asst. News Editor @LALoyolan
Donald Trump released a blueprint for his budget request for the fiscal year of 2018, named “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again,” and it included a 13 percent cut in overall education spending. This budget, released on March 16, cuts spending in art, science, environmental, infrastructural and foreign aid programs, shifting $54 million in spending to homeland security and defense. As a result of these changes, multiple programs designed to aid teachers and students in college and public schools would be reduced. The 2017 budget for education is $68.2 billion in spending, but Trump’s budget proposes a $9.2 billion cut bringing the 2018 budget down to $59 billion. These cuts are not something new from Trump, as he first promised to cut funding from the EPA and Department of Education in Oct. 2015 during an interview with Fox News. The blueprint suggests cuts in programs like the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant Program (FSEOG) which “provides money for school to students with exceptional financial need,”
according to the program’s informational site. This program claims to constitute just under a billion in federal spending while providing financial aid to an estimated 1.3 million students. Trump’s plan states it will save $732 million by eliminating the program. According to the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, 13 thousand students on Jesuit campuses like LMU will lose financial aid if the FSEOG is cut. The program will also targets multiple programs dedicated to students who cannot pay for full tuition, including Federal Work-Study Programs and Pell Surplus grants. Pell grants are the largest source of financial aid for undergraduate students with lowincome families, reportedly giving out $7.8 billion to students last year. On March 17, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) released a statement in full opposition of the budget blueprint. The statement said, “A $3.9 billion cut to the Pell grant balance will erode the program’s fiscal health. On our Jesuit campuses, where 22 percent of students are Pell grant recipients, this proposed budget leaves the amount of the maximum Pell grant award unknown.” The blueprint states the cuts to Pell Grants are positives, “leaving the Pell Grant program on sound footing for the next decade.” The Higher Education Act (HEA) established in 1965, created workstudy programs as well as the Pell Surplus program. The AJCU’s statement suggests that if Trump intends to eliminate programs
created by the HEA, it should be done in the program’s next authorization in Congress rather than in his budget. Trump’s budget also proposes $43 million in cuts to 20 different teacher-training programs like the Teacher Quality Partnership program which, according to the program’s website, “Create[s] model teacher preparation programs to grow the pool of quality new teachers.” Additionally, the budget will cut $2.4 billion in Effective Instruction State Grants which funds teacher training by school districts.
Trump’s budget doesn’t just cut programs in education, however. It also increases charter school funding by $168 million, and creates a private-school voucher system with a $250 million budget. The private-school voucher system would fund high-school students who decide to attend alternatives to traditional private schools. This represents President Trump’s promise to privatize the education system while also providing increased choice in schooling for poor families. “As president, I will establish the national goal of providing
school choice to every American child living in poverty… I have no doubt that we as a nation can provide school choice to every disadvantaged child in America,” Trump said during a visit to a charter school in September 2016. During that same trip, Trump promised to direct $20 billion of federal grants to students who wish to attend charter or private schools. While the blueprint promises that $20 billion investment, no plan beyond the $418 million has been announced.