President Obama used his keynote address at a journalism awards dinner Monday night to reprimand political reporters for their role in enabling the rise of Donald Trump.
"It's worth asking ourselves what each of us — as politicians, as journalists, but most of all as citizens — may have done," Obama said during the event awarding this year's Toner Prize for political reporting. "Some may be more to blame than others for the current climate, but all of us are responsible for reversing it."
Though he expressed sympathy for reporters facing the challenges of a changing industry, he pushed them to remember that their job is "more than just handing someone a microphone."
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"The choice between what cuts into your bottom lines and what harms us as a society is important. You have to choose which price is higher to pay, which cost is harder to bear," Obama said. Because right now, he continued, "our democracy needs you more than ever."