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July 13 marked the first anniversary of the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump, an attack that bloodied the president and killed one of his supporters.
It brought to mind a newspaper story, a short piece in The New York Times written by Shawn McCreesh, who was covering the Trump campaign. It was a finalist in Poynter’s recently established short writing competition, part of the Poynter Journalism Prizes
This story is so good that it deserves special critical attention, what I call X-ray reading, a form of interpretation designed to reveal the hidden architecture of the piece.
Three things that interested me right off the bat:
- That this was written so brilliantly — and with such nuance — on deadline.
- That a routine story for a campaign event — just another MAGA rally — turned into a worldwide news happening with urgent implications for American politics and global affairs. (It reminded me of how sportswriters had to shift their attention from a 1989 World Series game to an earthquake in California.)
- That a journalist could, in fewer than 500 words, employ the opportunities provided by several genres: from column notes to reporting to storytelling to, if I may speak broadly, theater criticism.
Many years ago, at a seminar for sports writers in St. Petersburg, Florida, I engaged in a debate with sports columnist and writing coach Alan Richman, who would become famous for his food writing. We were arguing, in a productive way, about the sportswriting genre known simply as the “game story.” My take was that readers still wanted to have a reporter’s take on what happened: highlights of the game with quotes from players and managers.
Richman made the case that the game was, in large measure, a theatrical performance. It had a cast, conflict, a narrative line, heroes and goats, and actions that were praiseworthy or deserving of criticism, like the batter who did not run out the ground ball, costing the team a run. A game could be comic or tragic.
Applied to this story by McCreesh, the idea of the reporter as theater critic gains traction. After all, Trump (even more than Ronald Reagan) has constructed a political life using many of the strategies of the entertainment world, from reality TV to the beauty pageant to the talk show to the catch phrases and morality plays of professional wrestling.
The writing is so vivid, I made the mistake of assuming that McCreesh was an eyewitness. In an email message, he explained:
Sorry to say that a lot less went into it than you might have assumed — I wasn’t even at that rally. I was just watching it on TV. After he was shot, the newsroom kicked into overdrive and we were all figuring out ways to write about it. I was just asked to zoom in on the raising of the fist, specifically, that moment and what it said. All the quotes were just from video footage I watched over and over again.
McCreesh had done lots of on-the-ground reporting on the Trump campaign. But this is a case where eyewitness reporting — even if the reporter had been close to the action — could never have gained the detail and dialogue provided by video imagery, which could be examined multiple times. (If I had been a reporter near the podium, my instinct might have been to duck and cover!)
I could argue that watching political events on television makes them seem more theatrical, a fact that the president knows too well.
What makes a news story good?
The great Stuart Adam, Canada’s most influential journalism scholar, was once asked to judge a newspaper writing contest. When he was given no criteria, he created his own, eventually turning them into a model of journalism competence.
They were news judgment, reporting and evidence, language use, narrative structure, and interpretation.
I used that rubric to help me evaluate the entries to Poynter’s national short-writing contest. On a scale of 1-5 in each category, McCreesh’s story on the Trump shooting received a perfect score of 25.
News judgment: With the exception of terrorist attacks of 9/11 or the Great Recession of 2008 or the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, it’s hard to think of a story with greater news value than an assassination attempt on a president. In my opinion, the two pillars of news judgment are these: Is it important? Is it interesting? In a way, the brevity of the story — with its tight focus — enhances its news value. Grade: 5
Reporting and evidence: If news judgment is one cornerstone of journalism, the other is evidence, derived from good reporting. There are two main kinds of writing that make up the news. Let’s call them reports and stories. Reports transmit information to the reader, answering the traditional questions of Who, What, Where and When. A report points the reader to facts. But a story is not about information. It’s about experience. A story puts the reader there, which requires the collection of a different set of elements. Grade: 5.
Language use: From the first sentence, the writer is using all the available language tools. Verbs that capture action. Details that we can see and feel and hear. Actors speaking. Hard to find a word that is not doing useful work. Grade 5.
Narrative strategies: Long, epic stories from ancient times often began with a strategy called “in media res” — in the middle of things. Another piece of writing advice is that the writer should begin the story as close to the end as possible, using flashbacks to provide context. This short piece reveals the key elements of storytelling: character details, action in scenes, a setting, time in motion, and dialogue instead of flat quotes. Grade 5.
Interpretation: We would expect some analysis of events in a book or in a longer investigative piece. In short work, we might see it in a film review or even in a tweet that tries to give value to a sports moment or a faux pas by a politician. What is distinctive about this piece is the way the writer had been exposed over time to the theatricality of Trump’s mode of campaigning. The description of Trump’s responses to being shot is layered skillfully into the narrative. Grade: 5+
The X-ray reading
Below is the full text of McCreesh’s story, originally published July 13, 2024. You may want to read it first as it originally appeared in The New York Times. Here, it is interrupted several times with commentary in brackets [like this]. I call this form of appreciation “X-Ray Reading.” It’s designed to uncover not just the meaning of the text, but some of the ways in which the writer delivered it. No doubt, you will see strategies or effects that were invisible to me. Feel free to include them.
Amid the Mayhem, Trump Pumped His Fist and Revealed His Instincts
A bloodied Donald J. Trump made Secret Service agents wait while he expressed his defiance. The moment epitomized his visceral connection with his supporters, and his mastery of the modern media age.
Donald J. Trump was back on his feet. [Seven words, ending in “feet” — his feet and shoes will act as minor characters.] He had just been shot at, his white shirt was undone and his red hat was no longer on his head. [A good example of how the passive voice can describe the victim or receiver of action.] Blood streaked across his face as riflemen patrolled the perimeter of the stage. A pack of Secret Service agents pressed their bodies against his. [Active verbs advance the story, capturing the frantic actions of the players.] “We’ve got to move, we’ve got to move,” one pleaded. [Reports often rely on quotes, which comment on the action. This piece of dialogue is the action.]
“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” the former president instructed, his voice a harried — but startlingly clear — command. Reluctantly, they halted. He peered out into the crowd. [Here is the first hint of critical analysis of performance, with modifiers such as “harried” and “reluctantly.”]
And then his arm reached toward the sky, and he began punching the air. [Trump has seized control of the dramatic moment, a truth that the writer communicates in a 14-word sentence, with the key phrase set at the end.]
The crowd started to chant — “U-S-A! U-S-A!” — as the agents inched Mr. Trump toward the stairs. When they reached the top step, they paused once more, so Mr. Trump could lift his arm a little higher, and pump his fist a little faster. The crowd roared a little louder. [The scene is heightened with crowd noise, a group of actors – agents – and the main player.]
It’s difficult to imagine a moment that more fully epitomizes Mr. Trump’s visceral connection with his supporters, and his mastery of the modern media age. [This is the sentence/paragraph that stands out from the normal report or story. It is pure analysis/interpretation, communicated not as an opinion, but as a kind of cultural truth.]
Mr. Trump would not leave the stage without signaling to his fans that he was OK — even as some were still wailing in fear. And he did not just wave or nod, he raised his fist in defiance above his bloodied face — making an image history will not forget. [More action, more details, and a kind of meta meaning, in which the reporter is not only describing an action IRL, but also the power of the media image that will be captured for the moment and posterity.]
He has always been highly conscious of how he looks in big moments, practicing his Clint Eastwood squint and preparing for his mean mug-shot grimace. But there was no time to prepare for this. [The name Clint Eastwood serves as a kind of back-up singer for the writer, unleashing the association with Hollywood heroes who also happen to have a dark side.]
This was instinct. [Tom Wolfe argued that when writers want you to believe a statement as the gospel truth, they place it in the shortest possible sentence.]
As the agents coaxed him onto his feet, he stammered, “Let me get my shoes on, let me get my shoes on.”
“I got you, sir, I got you, sir,” an agent replied. Mr. Trump rose, his voice uneven at first, still repeating himself: “Let me get my shoes on.”
“Hold that on your head,” an agent told him, “it’s bloody.”
“Sir, we’ve got to move to the cars,” another said.
“Let me get my shoes on,” Mr. Trump said again. [It is so unusual to find an extended dialogue in a breaking news story. We don’t just hear dialogue, we overhear it, gaining a sense that we have gained knowledge that was not necessarily for us.]
Fierce one moment, he looked drained and stricken the next.
After the agents managed to hustle him off the stage, they led him toward an idling Chevrolet Suburban. [Always glad to get the name of the dog, the brand of the beer, the make and model of the car.] He began to clamber inside, but before the door could close, he turned back toward the crowd again. His head appeared more blood-soaked than before. He raised his fist one more time. [A symbol need not be a cymbal. The raised fist is repeated in the text (four times by my count) in another short sentence with words of only one syllable.]
Reporting plus interpretation
This story was a worthy finalist in the short writing contest. It should invite a conversation about new ways of thinking about how to cover President Trump.
He plays many roles, of course: real estate mogul, deal maker, populist politician; but he has also been a reality TV personality, a professional wrestling character, and a kind of one-man-show, stand-up comedian, on the campaign trail.
Straight or traditional coverage leaves too many aspects of his personality and character uncovered. By combining straight reporting with critical interpretation, our reporter has helped us see (visually and intellectually) things that all good citizens need to know and understand about this president in this moment in time.
