There’s a hot new term doing the rounds among media critics: “sanewashing.” The term itself actually isn’t new, and it wasn’t born in media-criticism circles, per se; according to Urban Dictionary, it was coined in 2020 on a Reddit page for neoliberals (which Linda Kinstler wrote about recently for CJR), and meant “attempting to downplay a person or idea’s radicality to make it more palatable to the general public.” (It was deployed in discussions around, for example, “defunding the police.”) Recently, though, various observers have applied the term to media coverage of Donald Trump. Aaron Rupar, a journalist who is very active on X, has been credited with coining “sanewashing” in this specific context, but the term appeared to really blow up last week, after Parker Molloy wrote a column about it in The New Republic. (She expanded on the idea as a guest on the podcast Some More News.) The word has since been picked up by media bigwigs including Paul Krugman and Rachel Maddow, and appeared in outlets from Ireland to India.
As applied to Trump, the idea is that major mainstream news outlets are routinely taking his incoherent, highly abnormal rants—be they on social media or at in-person events—and selectively quoting from them to emphasize lines that, in isolation, might sound coherent or normal, thus giving a misleading impression of the whole for people who didn’t read or watch the entire thing.
Excerpts:
As I see it, newsroom policies discouraging remote diagnoses of mental health are generally to be followed, even if they shouldn’t curb any and all discussion in this area; also, Trump does have (or at least is associated with) policies that merit scrutiny, however incoherently he articulates them, and—as even some critics acknowledge—there has been at least somesharp recent coverage centering the incoherence. The idea that “the media” as a whole has ignored Trump’s fitness for office is very hard to sustain. Nonetheless, I find the sanewashing criticism persuasive, on the whole. Too often, major outlets clean up Trump’s language—especially in shorter formats, like headlines and ledes—to the point where it barely resembles what he actually said.
The article asks "if journalists are sometimes sanewashing Trump, why are they doing it?" Here's part of the answer:
Could it be that elite journalists think so little of Trump that they effectively condescend to him by cleaning up his speech? Do they think that picking meaning out of his word salads makes them sound clever or original? Is he held to a lower standard than his opponents because the latter are expected to speak in full sentences and he never has been? Is Trump sounding incoherent simply old news at this point, in an industry that prizes novelty?
The article concludes:
Tomorrow night, viewers will get an unadulterated dose of Trump when they tune in for his debate against Harris on ABC. Well, somewhat adulterated; Harris will be there too, of course, and Trump’s mic will be muted when she is talking—to the frustration of Harris’s team, which wanted her to be able to grill Trump in real time and also reportedly saw benefit in letting viewers hear Trump acting out. Ironically, it was Biden—who agreed to the terms for the debate before dropping out—who demanded muted mics; even Trump’s opponents, it seems, can’t agree on whether it’s best to shut him up or let him be heard. Unlike at the Biden-Trump debate in June, a “pool” of journalists will reportedly be close enough to the stage to hear the candidates this time. It might end up being their job to tell us what Trump said off-mic. Unavoidably, it’ll be all our jobs to describe what Trump said with the mics on.
"The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its original purpose was 'to assess the performance of journalism in all its forms, to call attention to its shortcomings and strengths, and to help define—or redefine—standards of honest, responsible service.' " (Wikipedia) Columbia is ranked as the third best journalism school in the country.
The CJR is asking a rhetorical question in their title. Their article answers the question. They know that reporters with a semblance of journalistic chops know the answer is "damn right it is."
We expect this kind of sanewashing from right-wing media but it is when it comes from what we like to consider objective reporters, some of whom actually have degrees in journalism and were assigned articles in the Columbia Journalism Review to read in college, it is appalling.
As the CJR points out, the follow-up coverage of tomorrow's debate will be a measure of how responsible journalists are in doing their jobs.
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