Maximum Attention, Minimum Scrutiny and Reality TV Politics: ‘Unlawful’ does not mean ‘politically damaging’ in the media landscape of the 2020s

Nick Knowlson

Introduction

On January 3^rd 2026, the United States of America carried out a military operation in Venezuela which resulted in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro. As this act has been labelled as a flagrant breach of international law, it may, if it were orchestrated by an earlier US administration, reasonably be expected to be a defining act of the presidential term. Indeed, parallels have been drawn between 2026’s ‘Operation Absolute Resolve’ and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, with the latter certainly being remembered as a formative event of President Bush’s tenure. It would go against the trend, however, if President Trump’s actions in relation to Venezuela are remembered in such a way, given the apparent irrelevance of actual and suspected unlawful conduct to the political popularity of the 45^th and 47^th President, relative to his predecessors. This is partially attributable to a news media landscape which is open to exploitation by politicians in order to avoid enduring scrutiny by the fourth estate. An overview of developments relating to news production and consumption which have influenced the present state of the media landscape will be followed by a discussion of the exploitation of the media landscape political figures to avoid political and/or legal repercussions of unlawful conduct.

Attention-Maximizing Journalism

The manner in which news is accessed has shifted dramatically in recent decades, with the popularity of the internet, social media and mobile apps as the primary mediums for news consumption skyrocketing, and the popularity of printed newspapers falling dramatically. One consequence of this shift in consumption is a significantly increased share of all news media that is free for readers to access which thus depends on advertising to generate revenue. The commercial viability of advertising-funded news providers is uniquely dependent on producing content that maintains consumer attention, in order to facilitate the viewership figures necessary to maximise the value of advertising slots. There is therefore a commercial incentive to find new stories to report on as soon as possible, in order to avoid the potentially detrimental effect on viewership/consumption resulting from stories that are perceived as repetitive or ‘old news'.  

The Role of the Audience

However, it would be inaccurate to claim that the changes in news reporting discussed above have been forced onto an entirely unwilling audience; the preferences of news consumers have also played a significant role. As noted above, the rise of social media - both as a means of accessing news content and in general – has been astronomic and has likely exacerbated the increasing reluctance of news organisations to create extensive content on a single event or ‘story’ in several ways. Perhaps most obviously this is due to the relationship between excessive use of social media and decreased attention spans. As the share of the adult population which use social media reportedly exceeds 90% in the United Kingdom and 85% in the United States, it could be assumed that the news audience of the present has a lower attention span than any that preceded it – thus resulting in a lower perceived threshold of coverage for a single story before audiences may consider it ‘repetitive’. Significantly, the effects of a perceived or actual predisposition to boredom among news audiences may extend beyond advertising-funded news organisations, with decreased interest in ‘old news’ among readership or journalists of other news providers conceivably suffering similar effects even without an immediate commercial incentive.

Exploitation & Unlawfulness

The implications of the stated changes to the media landscape are both concerning in theory and observable in contemporary politics. It has demonstrably allowed for political figures to avoid enduring public scrutiny for unlawful actions, either through diverting the ever-narrower attention span of news organisations and audiences, by enduring the transient spotlight placed upon them until an independent newsworthy event occurs, or by diverting attention themselves by doing or saying something else deemed newsworthy.

In the United Kingdom, a notable example of the former scenario is any political detriment Nigel Farage may have been expected to receive due to his association with Nathan Gill, the former leader of Farage’s Reform UK in Wales following the latter’s conviction and imprisonment for accepting bribes to publicly adopt pro-Russia positions. Despite Farage’s status as a betting favourite to be the next Prime Minister, the spotlight was dim and fleeting, with front page articles in a few national papers on the day following the conviction, but none subsequently.

The latter strategy has been used to great effect by the second Trump administration. While the front pages of newspapers and websites worldwide rightly reported the aforementioned capture of President Maduro, remarks by President Trump in following days relating to the possibility of military operations directed at Greenland and Colombia and Cuba generated feverish media attention which filled pages and webpages that may otherwise have continued to scrutinise what the President’s vague assertion that the US would ‘run’ Venezuela would entail in practice, or the President’s complete disregard for international law.  

Domestic - as well as international - illegality has been similarly deflected. On the 12^th and 13^th November 2025, the New York Times front page bore the respective headlines ‘Epstein Emails Suggested Trump Knew of Conduct’ and ‘Epstein Implied He Could Damage Ex-Friend, Trump’. For for the remainder of November 2025 the NYT front page referred to the Trump-Esptein relationship on two further occasions. While this may seem like substantial coverage for one news outlet, perspective is provided by the same paper featuring front page articles pertaining to the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal in 25 issues in the month following the story coming to light, with all other issues in this period containing an article on the matter elsewhere than the front page. While account must be had for prior public knowledge of the Trump-Epstein relationship by November 2025, President Trump was referenced on all front pages of the month following the aforementioned dates in relation to other matters that he is, it can be assumed, more comfortable receiving media attention - thereby serving as his own diversion from unwanted scrutiny.

President Trump’s political style was explained by Michael Wolff, who chronicled the 2016 election campaign, as thepolitical embodiment of the U.S. President’s former life as a reality TV star. In April 2025, somewhat presciently, Wolff noted that “[Trump] knows how to keep the attention of the public: it’s conflict, conflict, conflict. The problem is that the conflict must keep ramping up”.  Therefore, whether the ‘Venezuela’ episode is drawing to a close or only just beginning, it is clearly necessary for news organisations to provide content about Trump and any other politician which invites scrutiny rather than binging.