Media critic to speak at University of Idaho says ‘send the interns’ to cover Trump

Here’s a thought from a prominent media critic: Major news organizations shouldn’t waste “talent and prestige” by sending their best reporters to cover Donald Trump’s White House.

Instead, Jay Rosen suggests: “Send the interns.”

Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University who runs a popular blog called PressThink, argues that the search for truth during Trump’s presidency should take place outside the White House briefing room.

In a lecture next week at the University of Idaho, Rosen will make the case for refocusing news coverage of a president who traffics in demonstrably false claims and has labeled the press “the opposition party.”

“‘Send the interns’ means our major news organizations don’t have to cooperate with this. They don’t have to lend talent or prestige to it. They don’t have to be props. They need not televise the spectacle live,” Rosen wrote recently. “They can ‘switch’ systems: from inside-out, where access to the White House starts the story engines, to outside-in, where the action begins on the rim, in the agencies, around the committees, with the people who are supposed to obey Trump but have doubts.”

Rosen’s lecture will begin at 7 p.m. Feb. 16 at UI’s College of Law, 711 Rayburn St. in Moscow. It is free and open to the public.