If the Journal’s reporting on a supposed birthday letter President Trump sent to Jeffrey Epstein 22 years ago is any indication, the media has chosen to continue the unsustainable practices that have made them among the least trusted institutions in American life.
Under normal circumstances, an industry driven by trust would do everything possible to maintain it with their customers, and should this trust falter, do even more to regain it, but as we all know, there is nothing normal about the modern era. Hence, the news media continues to register “record-low trust” according to Gallup and other sources, and yet simultaneously continues the very practices that have resulted in the erosion in the first place, essentially committing a slow death by suicide. The numbers are staggering, capturing a dramatic decline over the past twenty five years. Last October, Gallup’s annual survey of trust in various civic and private institutions found that only 31% of Americans have a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of confidence in the media to report the news “fully, accurately, and fairly,” matching similar numbers since 2016. Further, “For the third consecutive year, more U.S. adults have no trust at all in the media (36%) than trust it a great deal or fair amount. Another 33% of Americans express ‘not very much’ confidence.” As recently as 1976, however, an incredible 72% of Americans reported having a great deal or a fair amount, compared to only 4% who had none at all. Even as late as 1999, they found 55% with a great deal or a fair amount, and only 11% with none, making the decline a much more pronounced since then. As they put it in comparison to other institutions today, “The news media is the least trusted group among 10 U.S. civic and political institutions involved in the democratic process. The legislative branch of the federal government, consisting of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, is rated about as poorly as the media, with 34% trusting it. In contrast, majorities of U.S. adults express at least a fair amount of trust in their local government to handle local problems (67%), their state government to address state problems (55%), and the American people as a whole when it comes to making judgments under our democratic system about the issues facing the country (54%). Between 40% and 48% of Americans trust the judicial branch headed by the U.S. Supreme Court, men and women in political life, the federal government’s handling of international problems, and the executive branch led by the president. Fewer U.S. adults trust the federal government’s handling of domestic problems (37%).” Of course, it doesn’t take a political genius to identify 2016 as the year President Donald Trump became the official Republican standard bearer and the moment at which the media’s credibility began to erode to unsustainable levels, suggesting that the two are either cause and effect or at least highly correlated enough as to mean the same for our purposes.
During the 2024 election, I would also suggest we’ve seen evidence of this declining trust in action when almost every media outlet vociferously opposed the then former President while lauding his opponent. According to the admittedly conservative Media Resource Center, broadcast evening news coverage skewed 85-89% negative towards Donald Trump, but 78-84% positive towards Kamala Harris. President Trump’s detractors would undoubtedly claim this was well deserved, but regardless, the American people simply refused to listen for whatever reason and it’s very difficult to see how that would be the case if people believed what they were being told by these and other outlets. They did not, choosing a candidate they were well aware broad swaths of the media detested in what should be seen in many ways as a stunning rebuke. In the aftermath, they could’ve understood this to be a critical moment in their declining trust and taken corrective action, or continued to do more of the same. Sadly, if the Wall Street Journal’s “reporting” last week on a supposed birthday letter President Trump sent to Jeffrey Epstein 22 years ago is any indication, they have chosen the former. “It was Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday, and Ghislaine Maxwell was preparing a special gift to mark the occasion,” they began in a much-hyped story. “She turned to Epstein’s family and friends. One of them was Donald Trump. Maxwell collected letters from Trump and dozens of Epstein’s other associates for a 2003 birthday album, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.” “The letter bearing Trump’s name, which was reviewed by the Journal, is bawdy—like others in the album,” they continued without mentioning who the others were or what the other content was. “It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly ‘Donald’ below her waist, mimicking pubic hair. The letter concludes: ‘Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.’” The type written letter itself imagines a conversation between then businessman Trump and the deceased Mr. Epstein, during which he appears to allude to sex with under aged girls. “Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything,” it began, leading to President Trump supposedly claiming that he and Mr. Epstein have “certain things in common” before insinuating, rather bizarrely, that “Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?” presumably hinting about young women
Even before publication, President Trump vociferously denied the letter was genuine and threatened to sue the publication. “In an interview with the Journal on Tuesday evening, Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture. ‘This is not me. This is a fake thing. It’s a fake Wall Street Journal story,’ he said. ‘I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women,’ he said. ‘It’s not my language. It’s not my words.’ He told the publication he was preparing to file a lawsuit if it published an article. ‘I’m gonna sue The Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else,’ he said.” While President Trump certainly has reasons to be untruthful in this matter, there is equally ample reason to believe that Journal never should have published the letter in the first place and would not have if they adhered to anything resembling regular editorial standards. To begin with, even in the initial publication they admitted they were not in possession of the letter itself, saying only that they “reviewed” it somehow, and subsequently they confirmed that they still don’t have it. Likewise, they noted “It isn’t clear how the letter with Trump’s signature was prepared,” meaning they have no idea where it originated or how, only that “Pages from the leather-bound album—assembled before Epstein was first arrested in 2006—are among the documents examined by Justice Department officials who investigated Epstein and Maxwell years ago, according to people who have reviewed the pages.” In other words, the leather-bound album itself, assuming it exists, has been floating around without a verified chain of custody for 19 years, no one had ever heard of it previously in the thousands upon thousands of articles that have been printed about Mr. Epstein, and the sources that provided the letter remain anonymous at this time. The weasel wording further suggests that it was not provided by the officials themselves, merely those who “reviewed the pages” whatever that may mean. Further, one of the reporters that broke the story, Joe Palazzolo, previously worked for the defunct Main Justice publication, which was managed by the wife of one Glenn Simpson, whose Fusion GPS opposition research firm generated the infamous Steele Dossier alleging Russian collusion, paid for by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, meaning a lead reporter had already been connected to completely fabricated information concerning President Trump. Mr. Palazzolo also happened to “break” the story that President Trump’s then attorney Michael Cohen negotiated a confidentiality agreement with Stormy Daniels for $130,000. In fact, he was credited by New York Magazine’s Intelligencer as having “helped set in motion the first criminal prosecution of a former president.” Putting this another way, the reporter had been involved in anti-Trump hit pieces in the past and was connected to the greatest anti-Trump hit piece of all time.
Further, the Journal itself doesn’t reveal where the letter came from, how they reviewed it, in hard copy or scan, and what process they used to verify it, nor did they actually print the letter or even have it in their possession at this point. In that regard, their sources remain anonymous referring only to “those familiar with the letter.” Even setting aside the details of their engagement with the supposed letter, it’s an open question how such a thing could be verified in the first place. What process did they follow to authenticate a type-written 22 year old note that no one has seen for 19 years? Is that even possible in principle when we don’t even know if they analyzed it in physical form and the signature is said to be part of the doodle and not President Trump’s regular script? They don’t say, nor did they release the actual letter for others to analyze and comment on. Instead, it appears that they accepted it as authentic based on the source, without actually revealing that source, not exactly encouraging for anyone who has observed the media over the past decade. Whether or not the letter turns out to be authentic, and surely President Trump’s promptly filed $15 billion lawsuit should be enough to determine that, it’s hard to see what journalistic standards were adhered to throughout this process. A mysterious, vaguely written yet obviously insinuating letter arrives out of nowhere, written 22 years ago, not seen in almost two decades, one no one was aware existed in the middle of a hotly contested debate over what portion of the Epstein Files the government should release and how. It is provided to a source with contacts to those who had previously created false and damaging information about the President. Setting aside whether the letter is truly newsworthy given that it provides no new information other than innuendo, the source and the timing alone should have been suspicious. It is, as far as we know, not authenticated, or at least no means of authentication have been provided. There is, of course, a highly sensitive political component in an already charged atmosphere. The editorial board would have been aware there would be an immediate reaction independent of its newsworthiness and veracity. They also would have been aware that, should it turn out to be false for any reason, no retraction could ever outpace the initial impact, and sure enough, immediately upon its release Trump’s detractors began calling him a “pedophile” based solely on the vaguely worded, hypothetical conversation in the letter, bizarrely claiming the letter makes it a fact that he is a child rapist. They knew all this, but they went ahead and published it anyway. Ultimately, trust is earned, and even after it’s lost, can be earned back, but certainly not like this.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 