Savannah Guthrie: Media Should ‘Take a Breath’ ‘Every Molehill Is Not a Mountain’ – Stop With ‘Snarky Twitter Feeds’

On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” NBC’s “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie weighed in on the battles between members of the press and President Trump by expressing disapproval with some of Trump’s rhetoric, but also criticizing “snarky” Twitter feeds by some reporters and the lack of proportionality in some news coverage.

Guthrie began by saying that Trump’s attacks on the press in front of reporters are “awkward. It’s uncomfortable. We’ve all been on the business end of asking a president or a leader who does not care for the tone or the substance of your question. But on the other hand, I mean, this is what a healthy democracy is. He’s doing his job by pushing back. She’s [NBC Chief White House Correspondent Hallie Jackson] doing her job. I’m fine with that. I mean, honestly when have presidents and the press enjoyed totally warm relations? Never.”

She continued, “But I think when you call it fake news, and you act like a critical story isn’t really a story, that’s where I think it just pushes it too far. And I do understand why people say, you know, politics should end at the water’s edge. And I think criticizing democratic institutions overseas, I think, you know, do it at home. Don’t do it abroad. … I try not to hyperventilate too much about this kind of thing, but I do think that this whole notion of fake news is just — all that really means, if you want to just have — if there were a definition in the Urban Dictionary, it would be, ‘News that I don’t like.’ Anybody who’s using that term, that’s what it means.”

Later on, Guthrie stated that she wants to be fair as a member of the media and that a lot of media criticism isn’t people who want the press to be neutral, it’s people who wish the press was biased towards their side.

She concluded, “[W]e need to play the long game. We don’t need to play small ball. I’ve seen a lot of reporters who have snarky Twitter feeds. I don’t think that helps. I don’t think, when we’re trying to say, hey, we are fair. We are neutral arbiters. We do care about the truth. We do care about facts. I don’t want to give people who disagree with that any ammunition whatsoever. So, I think for all of us, I mean, my view is, like, let’s just be the best possible reporters we can be, for those of us who aren’t writing for the editorial pages. And every mountain — excuse me, every molehill is not a mountain. I mean, I saw reporters breathlessly talking about the disorganization of the White House Easter Egg Roll. Well, that’s not the same as giving away intelligence secrets to the Russians in the Oval Office. And I think the media needs to take a breath, and know the difference, and have proportionality in terms of its coverage.”

(h/t WFB)

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett