During the INMA World Congress of News Media in New York last week, the name and consequences of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term — 120 days in — never seemed far away. 

From igniting a fire in the belly of journalists to increasing digital engagement, Trump is definitely the industry’s lead story at the moment.

After INMA CEO Earl J. Wilkinson started his keynote speech acknowledging this fact, saying Trump was testing the guardrails of democracy, attacking the pillars of society, stretching the law to achieve his goals, and rewriting the role of the United States in the world. Attendees thanked him.

“Thank you for saying his name,” Wilkinson was told. “Somebody had to say it out loud.”

Trump vs. NPR

On Tuesday, NPR (National Public Radio) and three public radio stations in the U.S. state of Colorado sued the Trump administration over its executive order banning funding to the public media by the U.S. Congress.

Just last week, NPR CEO Katherine Maher addressed the topic with INMA: “The executive order that has targeted us in our view is an absolute infringement on the First Amendment. It’s an infringement on the rights of our stations to acquire our programming. It violates their right to speech, and it violates their right to association.” 

This isn’t the first time federal funding has come up for the public news company, she told INMA. “But what makes this time different is not just the conversation about whether public media should be funded, it’s also the other actions that both the administration and Congress have engaged with around public media. And so it’s a much more comprehensive set of challenges that we’re facing.”

These attacks are unprecedented, Maher told World Congress co-moderator Robert Whitehead: “ The White House has requested that all of that money be clawed back that has been previously appropriated, which would mean that we would fall off a cliff starting in October.”

Trump-inspired journalism

Journalism legend Bob Woodward agreed with Wilkinson when speaking to World Congress attendees: Trump is today’s defining story.

At 82, Woodward, associate editor of The Washington Post, said the three biggest stories of his career are: the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the rise and return of Donald Trump.

Reflecting on an early 2016 interview, Woodward recalled Trump saying, “Real power is fear.” That line, he said, it now a tactic.

“It is a campaign of fear against the law firms, against the opposition, against the press, against everyone,” Woodward said. “Trump is taking that technique of scaring people and fear and directing that at any potential enemy or adversary.”

Woodward shared a previously unreported example from his book War, describing a 2020 telephone call between Trump and Vladimir Putin in which Trump secretly gave Putin valuable COVID test machines. Woodward said Putin warned Trump not to tell anyone:

“Please don’t tell anybody. ... People will get mad at you. They don’t care about me.”

When Trump denied the story, the Kremlin — of all entities — confirmed it. “Our job is more important than ever,” Woodward said.

INMA’s Wilkinson called Trump the “elephant in the room” at the conference.

“Say what you want to about Donald Trump, but he’s the biggest news story in the world today. He is testing the guardrails of our democracy in the United States. He’s attacking pillars of society and remaking them in his own image.”

Yes, Trump’s second term has changed the business calculations for the news industry and tightened press freedom. Yet, he is a gift to journalists, Wilkinson said: “There’s a renewed sense of mission, a surge in investigative reporting, and an expansion of fact-checking operations.”

One of many speakers to use the phrase “speaking truth to power,” Wilkinson called back to the official slogan of The Washington Post: “Democracy doesn’t die in darkness. It dies in silence. It dies with a thousand pulled punches that weaken journalism and ultimately weaken society.”

Trump-inspired subscriptions, engagement

During the two-day study tour that kicked off World Congress week, Ryan Daly, senior vice president/consumer products at Dow Jones, shared how the U.S.-based news company has mobilised around an audience-first approach to Trump’s trade war.

John Kunderk, chief product and technology officer at Financial Times, discussed with study tour participants how the news company is focused on storytelling, especially live blogs. The first Trump tariff announcement had 541,000 blog visits in a single day. 

These types of stories aren’t uncommon, even though U.S. news titles (unlike European titles) as a general rule aren’t getting a “Trump bump” like they did in 2016, according to INMA Researcher-in-Residence Greg Piechota. 

The Guardian, however, is a different story.

The U.K.-based Guardian is seeing its biggest revenue growth in the United States: a 40% increase in the past year.

The best thing to happen to its readership and donation numbers seems to have been the election of Donald Trump in 2024.

“People are really angry at the media,” said Georgia Warren, membership director at The Guardian. “They’re tired of both-ism. That really is the difference in what resonates between us and our competitors.”

The Guardian brought in US$2 million after its endorsement of Kamala Harris. And the biggest jumps in the U.S. product have included: the day The Washington Post decided to pull its endorsement of candidate Kamala Harris, Election Day, Trump’s inauguration, and the visit to the White House by Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

A first-person article published in March by a Canadian retained for two months by ICE (U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) garnered 1,286 “acts of support” for the U.S. Guardian. 

“It was well read but also deeply read,” Warren said. “Her [U.S. Editor Betsy Reed’s] note [asking for support] is at the bottom of the story. That’s at least 2,000 words. A lot of people got to the end and saw the ask. Also, it was really moving. It’s a piece of journalism that makes the reader feel something. If it’s moving in some way — angry or hopeful — if it makes you feel something strong, then people are more likely to give.”

The Guardian’s differentiator seems important in Trump’s moment: “We are holding power to account and offering free and fair news,” Warren said. “We define ourselves against the media environment — not the people in power.”

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