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Prominent political journalists convened Saturday in Penn Pavilion to discuss the implications of a second Trump administration and changing political and media landscapes at the 2025 Zeidman Colloquium on Politics and the Press.
Hosted by the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy, the colloquium is held biennially in the aftermath of major U.S. elections. This year’s panel — titled “Trump takes charge (again): What his second presidency and a Republican majority mean for America” — featured insights from Maggie Haberman, White House correspondent for The New York Times, NPR News Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and TIME Magazine Senior Correspondent Charlotte Alter. Frank Bruni, Eugene C. Patterson professor of the practice of journalism and public policy in the Sanford School of Public Policy and contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, moderated the discussion.
Insights on a second Trump administration
Though President Donald Trump has only been in office for a week, the panelists stressed that the new administration has already created “a culture of intimidation and fear.”
Haberman noted that the aggressive campaign Trump’s allies waged “to force Republican senators to heel” during Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s Senate confirmation, as well as his decision to fire at least 12 inspectors general — who act as independent watchdogs for government corruption and fraud — were signs that the Trump administration was going to make it “painful” for people in other branches of government who oppose him.
Folkenflik further alluded to emails encouraging federal employees to “rat out” colleagues harboring “secret [diversity, equity and inclusion] programs.”
“This is all sending a message to people about not getting out of line,” Haberman said.
She also discussed Trump’s desire for retribution against those he deems disloyal, citing his decision to pull the security details for former top advisers John Bolton and Mike Pompeo — as well as Pompeo’s top aide Brian Hook, former Duke in D.C. professor — all of whom have faced threats from Iran. In combination with the Jan. 6, 2021, pardons, Haberman noted that the move “sent a real, chilling signal that really nothing is off limits.”
Alter also highlighted the difference in response from Democrats to the new Trump administration compared to when he first took office in 2017, noting that now, Trump is more focused — and “his opposition has never been more disorganized and disillusioned.”
When asked by an audience member if the panelists expected politics to “return to more of a state of normalcy” in a post-Trump America, Alter confidently said “no.”
“One of the biggest takeaways from Trump’s existence and Trump’s political career for conservatives is moving away from a shame-based moral landscape,” she said. “On the left, you can’t get away with anything. On the right, you can get away with everything.”
Though the panelists agreed that Trump’s opposition is weaker than before, they remained hopeful that the share of power between Trump’s allies and opponents would become more balanced in the future.
“I think that his opposition is clearly taking a beat to figure out how to be most effective and actually work smart in this new world that we’re in,” Alter said. “But I don’t think that Trump is going to be a king who will be unopposed by Democrats forever.”
A look into the future of journalism
Saturday’s panelists largely agreed that in addition to a shifting political landscape, the nation is also reckoning with changes to the role — and demands — of the media.
Much like in 2016 and 2020, the media faced criticism last fall for “getting it wrong” in its coverage of the 2024 election. As some of the leading voices in that reporting, Bruni asked the panelists for their insights into whether legacy outlets actually fell short, and if so, where they went wrong.
Haberman asserted that in general, reporters have done “an extremely good job describing the stakes of the election.”
Instead of the media “failing” voters with their coverage, she pointed to “elected officials who were trying to defeat Trump,” saying they “had an obligation” to make the reasons for their opposition clearer to voters if they wanted him to lose. Folkenflik agreed, identifying a “category error” in people’s expectations of the press: “it’s not the [media’s] job to prevent Trump from being elected.”
Still, all panelists acknowledged that media organizations may be devoting too much coverage to political issues that most voters care little about and not enough to the issues that matter most to everyday Americans. Alter described what she termed a “misalignment” between the priorities of media organizations and their audiences.
“I’ve come to think that the smarter we are about politics, the dumber we are about politics, because most Americans don’t follow every single tick of every single story in the way that we in the political media do,” she said. “… The more absorbed we are in these stories, the less we’re getting how real people are thinking about them.”
This “misalignment” may be contributing to historic lows in readership and declining trust in the media, problems that have plagued media organizations around the country in recent years.
Haberman noted that this “crisis in journalism and people’s faith in [the media]” dates back long before the Trump era of politics. She pointed to the 2000 election, which was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the ensuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the 2008 financial crisis as events that served as “convulsions in a country.”
Although today’s low trust levels may be the culmination of a long-running trend, Alter thinks the problem may have reached a boiling point for the industry.
“I am having a serious crisis of faith in the efficacy of journalism,” she said. “… We’ve lost people.”
The panelists suggested a number of strategies to bolster reader trust. Folkenflit pointed to improving journalists’ understanding of algorithms to adapt to a changing technological media environment, while Alter advocated for allocating less attention to issues of a “higher-level importance” outside the scope of most readers’ interests. Haberman agreed, stressing the importance of “hearing where voters are expressing their concerns” and addressing those concerns more directly through media coverage.
Haberman qualified her stance, noting that the “crisis of trust” has a “flip side” that can complicate journalists’ ability to do their job.
“There is so much diffuse anger broadly across the country, since COVID in particular,” she said. “… The degree to which newspaper reporters have become seen as an acceptable target or receptacle for that anger has really grown.”
Still, Folkenflit maintained that the media remains an “indispensable” instrument for “hold[ing] power to account,” even if it is an “insufficient” one.
“People don’t always understand this about journalists because this time, it’s useful for us to be pinatas from the left as well as the right. There is real frustration, and it’s often earned. Sometimes it’s even fully deserved,” he said. “But most of the time people want to figure out ways to tell people about how the worlds around them work. It’s still an exciting enterprise, and I believe in it.”