What It’s Like to Be a Female Reporter Covering Donald Trump

[babylonsister]

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/09/what-its-like-to-be-a-female-reporter-covering-donald-trump.html?mid=huffpost_women-pubexchange_facebook

Daily Intelligencer
September 29, 2016 11:00 a.m.
What It’s Like to Be a Female Reporter Covering Donald Trump
By Claire Landsbaum

snip//

“I think you don’t realize the emotional cost of every single day, twice a day, being in rooms where the norm has become people shouting out, ‘Hang the bitch,’ ‘Kill her,’ ‘Cunt,’” the second reporter said. “You shouldn’t be at the point where you hear ‘Cunt’ and you think, Oh, they’re angry at Hillary, or you hear ‘Bitch,’ and you’re like, Oh, they’re talking about our former secretary of State.”

She went on, “I do wonder what it does to you as a woman, walking into rallies where people are wearing these shirts, saying these things, and speaking about women in these ways, and either having to hear it or getting to the point where you don’t hear it. Those words and those phrases should be jarring. That should never become normal, and if and when it does, some emotional cost has been extracted.”

Of course, nothing about the Trump campaign is normal, including its candidate’s habit of disparaging a reporter by name during a televised press conference. But the women I spoke with were so used to the latter, they couldn’t remember the first time it happened. More than anything, calling out a reporter seems to be Trump’s way of reasserting his control. According to one reporter, camera crews from a few networks at a time are allowed out of the press pen to shoot cuts of the scene from the stage. Once, when a network embed was around the stage filming, Trump called her out directly. “He said, ‘This network is up here. They’re supposed to be back there, but that’s okay; we’ll let them stay.’”

Nuzzi said she’s doing her best not to become numb to Trump — to remind herself that his candidacy is extreme. “I still have moments when I think, I cannot believe he’s the Republican nominee,” she said. “I’m not used to it, and I don’t think anyone should be used to it.”

The second reporter put it this way: “Everybody has a part of themselves that they’re not proud of — thoughts they think and then quickly push out of their minds. Trump gives people permission to unleash that very tiny part of themselves in a much larger way. But in order to do your job every single day, you learn to tune it out.”

[Arkansas Granny]

1. I hadn't considered what that would be like. It must be hard to remain unbiased while reporting.

[Akamai]

2. Also hard not to be terrified. Katie Tur was called out and secret service had to escort her out to

[Hortensis]

5. Maybe. But we should all have this learning experience,

because these reactions are their normal for a small but potent portion of our society. Let's hope that large numbers are learning that this is a real part of us and that their job has to be to keep it under control.

Of course, the huge problem with learning by experience for many is that there is no good teacher standing right there to explain just what the lesson is. They're on their own.

[rumdude]

3. "Trump gives people permission to unleash that very tiny part of themselves in a much larger way."

I think this is a big part of his appeal.

[rumdude]

4. "He looks like a planknton behind" his desk...

[NastyRiffraff]

6. the most frightening thing about Trump's candidacy

is that it slowly starts to feel "normal" at least as far as he's concerned. NO other candidate could EVER get away with most of what he's saying. NO other candidate could attack, individually and in groups, women, gays, Blacks, Hispanics; anyone not a white male. NO other candidate could suggest violence against his opponent and get away with it.

Yet Trump can, and does, with his deplorables. My hope is that these people are outliers and Hillary Clinton will HUMILIATE him on November 8, just as she did in the first debate.

[PunkinPi]

7. Another example...Reporter: Donald Trump called me the C-word

A reporter recalls Trump's 1988 reaction to a story she wrote about him: he called and cursed her and her paper, then called her the C-word to her boss.

Source: CNN/Smerconish

http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/10/01/reporter-donald-trump-called-me-the-c-word.cnn

[Madam45for2923]

8. None of it should be seen as normal.