Of Course Networks Should Carry the Trump Address Live

On the heels of Donald Trump‘s announcement that he will deliver a prime time address on Tuesday night, many have suggested that the cable and broadcast networks should not carry the speech live. Not only are those suggestions wrong, they are squandering the best opportunity to hold Trump accountable.

When Trump requested the time for tomorrow night’s address, there were reports that networks were “deliberating” whether or not to grant it.

According to CNN’s Brian Stelter, those deliberations included a text from an unnamed television executive who said “He calls us fake news all the time, but needs access to airwaves… If we give him the time, he’ll deliver a fact-free screed without rebuttal. And if we don’t give him the time, he’ll call every network partisan. So we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”

Former senior Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer correctly criticized that logic, tweeting “‘If we don’t broadcast the President’s unfiltered fake news, he will call us Fake News’ is an incredibly stupid way to make a decision.”

On the other hand, not broadcasting Trump’s address isn’t going to make it disappear, or slow it down in the least.

The argument against airing the address is appealing at a gut level, and has been applied to other White House events like Sarah Huckabee Sanders‘ infrequent briefings. By airing these events live, networks are amplifying lies at worst, and promoting inappropriately partisan political messages at best.

But as Frank Sesno noted during an appearance on CNN Monday afternoon, the press has a duty to report on things that are newsworthy, and Trump’s address is newsworthy. And even if one or more networks declined to air the address live, Fox certainly would, and it would still be available online. There is no keeping it under wraps.

That’s not the only duty of the press, though. We also have a duty to serve the public, and by ceding live broadcasts to Fox News and Right Side Broadcasting, news organizations would be surrendering their best chance to serve their own audiences by holding Trump accountable to the truth.

Yes, they could sort through the speech and offer selected highlights, properly contextualized, after the address, but such an approach would lose them massive numbers of viewers, and every minute that passed would deaden their impact.

A far better approach would be to adapt, to learn how to fact-check and contextualize Trump in real time. It’s a technique that’s extraordinarily difficult for reporters to carry out on the spot, but news organizations have the resources to check Trump with lightning speed, and to do so compellingly.

Demanding that the networks ignore Trump’s speech is a complete waste of time, because they simply cannot. That energy would be far better spent demanding that news organizations rise to the challenge that Trump’s lies present, and counter them with something even more powerful: the truth. In real time.

[featured photo via Getty Images]

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.