TV: If the message on the jacket really was directed at “fake news” media outlets, like Donald Trump explained in his tweet, what kind of impression do you think that could leave on media consumers?

LP: I unfortunately can't see the tweet you're referencing because I'm still blocked by Donald Trump on Twitter, which means that, as a member of the media, I am blocked from being able to view his tweets, which are considered official statements. From the very moment Donald Trump announced his campaign, he has been at war with what he calls "fake news," which is just another word for the media. He has called us the enemy of the state and continues to try and delegitimize us with tactics that are extremely explicit. From blocking journalists on Twitter to throwing reporters like Jorge Ramos out of his press conferences, he has made his attempts to discredit the media very clear. In fact, the only news channel he doesn't call fake news is what would be defined by any measure to be a government propaganda network. Just today The Daily Show published a video showing the similarities with the texts read on teleprompters by anchors in North Korea with the ones being read by anchors on Fox News. At times, they are impossible to distinguish.

__TV: How should the media respond to future instances of Melania’s wardrobe propaganda? Is it possible to do it without facing backlash for targeting her appearance? __

__LP:__Melania's coat is not committing human rights abuses at the border, Donald Trump is. That's the story that matters, and any other story is a distraction and a deflection. I think everyone needs to remember that this administration is smarter than we think they are.

TV: What should people really understand about the media’s contribution to uncovering these human rights violations?LP: My advice for reporters is always to write the story that the Trump administration doesn't want you to write and to talk about what they want you to remain silent about. The Trump administration didn't want reporters to go to these detention centers and record the harrowing screams of kidnapped children. They didn't want photographers to snap pictures of toddlers crying for their mother. Do you know how we know that? The president (predictably) called those "phony stories of sadness and grief." Those images and sounds are of course real, but they contradicted the White House's narrative (pushed on the record by very senior officials), and eventually led to a reversal of their policy because it made the public so outraged they had no choice.

So, again, the role of journalists in 2018 is to draw attention to what the Trump administration doesn't want them to draw attention to. Donald Trump is not our assignment editor. Journalists choose what to cover. The Melania jacket is a pristine example of an attempt to control what the media does and then create a backlash against it. It's such an effective strategy, it worked! Behavioral scientist George Lakoff writes a lot about this, and warns about the different framing devices that the Trump administration uses to warp reality. Reporters need to determine the framing, not let the Trump administration do it for them.

A perfect example is how the media reported about "tender-age" centers, which is an Orwellian term to describe detention camps for babies. Reporters don't have to (and, in fact, shouldn't) use the words the administration wants us to use. We are not covering a normal government. Those days are over. Two days ago, when the president signed an executive order to end his own policy of separating families at the border, he took credit for solving a crisis that he himself created. That is gaslighting at its highest form. And only five days before he did that, he praised Kim Jong Un, a dictator who murders his own people. "People sit up at attention, I want my people to do the same," he told Steve Doocy on the White House lawn.

The only way for journalists to learn more about how to be a good reporter in 2018 is by looking at the way the media operates in authoritarian regimes, because it's overtly clear that we are living in one.

Related: Melania Trump Wears Heels to Texas to Meet With Hurricane Harvey First Responders

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