Editorials

Yesterday, between 70 and 350 newspapers and other online news sources (depending on which source you read) published coordinated editorials attacking Donald Trump for his attacks on the media. His attacks note the media's obvious left-leaning bias, its emphasis on "news" that depicts the current administration in a negative light (90+ percent of all news stories), its de-emphasis or omission of news (think: the economy) that suggests that Trump is doing a much better than average job when compared to past presidents and, of course, Trump's suggestion that "the press is the enemy of the American people."

Nina Bookout writes:

The New York Times offered this up:

A FREE PRESS NEEDS YOU

Oh. Ok. A free press needs us? Actually, yes, it does. And we do need a free press. What we ALSO need and expect is an OBJECTIVE free press. Which is difficult when you factor in human nature. But objectivity must be strived for. Temper tantrums in the White House press corps a la Jim Acosta-style is by no means objective and only serves to have us mistrust the press even more.

Memo to the national media: We don’t like you because you are printing fiction and then throwing pearl clutching fits when we demand you print facts. If you want to be liked and trusted, then EARN it.

My recent post on the media as a victim and their subsequent temper tantrums makes essentially the same point.

For decades, the media was a bully when reporting on any GOP policies, politicians, or lawmaking. When the GOP screwed up, the media amplified the screwup invariably suggesting that the GOP didn't care about the common person or were racists, or bigots, or anti-Democratic. And the GOP largely took it, pushing back weakly when they pushed back at all. They allowed the media to define the narrative. And the media loved it. No more.

In recent years, during the term of Barack Obama, the media went into gaslighting mode, telling us that everything was sweetness and light, that scandals didn't happen, that bad policy was good policy, that dishonesty was only a matter of misinterpretation, that a weak foreign policy with disastrous outcomes was strength, that allies loved what we were doing when they hated it. And when opponents suggested otherwise, the media created an image of "conspiracy theorists" who were opposing their lies for partisan advantage.

Excuse those of us who view the media with skepticism. We think that the majority of "journalists" are biased, lazy, and often dishonest. We view the lack of objectivity and the prevalence of fake news (a.k.a. "mistakes" that always seem to favor the Democrats) as clear bias. We look askance at their selective leaks and investigations that often refuse to look at wrong doing when it reflects badly on Dems. We think that lack of context is akin to propaganda. And "we" are not a small number of people, but the majority, if you are to believe the polls.

The media has a problem, and it has NOTHING to do with Donald Trump. My bet is that not a single editorialist noted the real problem even though it's easy to identify. All they have to do is look in the mirror.