Meriah Doty

Steve Bannon’s demand that the media “keep its mouth shut” reflects the new Trump administration’s weakness and not its strength.

“If Bannon didn’t care, then he would ignore all of it,” said Al Tompkins, Poynter Institute’s senior faculty for broadcasting and online. “The opposite of love is not hate — it’s apathy. It matters and they know that this press coverage is killing their credibility,” Tompkins said. “Even their own supporters have to be raising questions.”

“This isn’t the first time the administration has attacked the media,” said Bill Wheatley, former NBC News executive and adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. “I remember when Spiro Agnew called us ‘nattering nabobs of negativism.’ We were under attack during the Nixon administration. We just need to do our jobs. That’s what it’s all about.”

Tompkins added, “I’m not worried. I believe there has not been a time in my life when journalists have mattered more, when things have moved as fast as they’re moving now.” He continued: “The role of journalism is essential because the role of the government right now is so unclear. You have a massive exodus at the State Department, a pending trade war with Mexico and the pending dismantling of a very large health insurance system and it’s all happening too fast for regular citizens to make sense of it, so we need journalists now more than ever.”