What Does It Mean to Be a Journalist in the Age of Trump?

“Every journalist, no matter the beat, covers politics now.”

— Sarah Frier

Dear Reader,

You’ve probably read more than a few introspective op-eds from the media industry during the past year — in part because of our political situation and in part because of the way that digital journalism is constantly remaking the industry. Things have been extra navel-gazey here at The Bold Italic mainly because we were founded in 2009, at the beginning of the Obama years. We’ve literally never existed during a Republican administration, much less in a semi-authoritarian regime like Trump’s is turning out to be.

As editor in chief, I’ve made a conscious decision not to embrace the more escapist aspects of a culture magazine. It seems probable that the Trump years are going to be a constant assault on civil rights, as we saw in the past week. If we published only whimsical listicles as a means of helping our readers escape from the political horror, we would be complicit in Trump’s agenda by encouraging our readers to be distracted rather than face the magnitude of the threat to both civil rights and democracy.

Being a culture magazine in the age of Trump — especially in a liberal region like the Bay Area — means covering what it means to live here under the Trump regime; how it affects our readers; how it affects our most vulnerable; and, especially, how it affects those whom Trump has targeted. More than that, though, it means covering how and why we fight back. The Bay Area has long been the bellwether of many American political movements; it has already taken center stage as a hive of resistance.

To that end, I have been commissioning articles and working with writers to bring you the same perspectives, humor and cultural politics you’ve always known and loved, yet in ways that address—head on—the current situation that we are in. These selections from the past week exemplify these goals: to bring you the world through a Bay Area lens while exploring how our lives have changed in this political moment.