Biting Commentary
President Trump and the Independent (?) Media
By Richard B. Barger, ABC, APR
Originally Posted
Updated
At CornerBarPR.com®, we've been annoyed by the "ganging up" of much of the in(ter)dependent media against President Donald Trump.
Oh, they eventually get around to some national and international (and political) news, but their self-serving coverage first focuses on what they don't like about the President and on what he says and how he says it. Thus, the limited airtime and print space available to cover issues in some depth is overwhelmed by editorial decisions that sanctimoniously emphasize the President's style and approach, because they've had their collective feelings hurt, rather than reporting and commenting on the substance of his actions and achievements.
Yesterday, 300+ newspapers across the country had a collective tantrum, which ...
Well, let's let Greg Gutfeld describe it in the monologue he delivered on "The Five" on FOX News:
Gutfeld's monologue
Today, 300 newspapers coordinated articles criticizing President Trump, just after he'd accused them of coordinating articles criticizing President Trump.
And nobody read them.
If jerks like me weren't talking about it, would you even know? Yeah, it's another public display of the press exercising their right to irrelevance.
Remember when The New York Times ran an editorial saying it stood for Hillary, and the rest of the media followed? Now they say Trump's blocking free speech, and they all screamed it in unison.
Trump accuses them of "groupthink," and they respond ... with groupthink.
Now since the election, the media has been one malfunctioning car alarm: loud, relentless, and broken. This, after sleeping through Obama's term, ignoring Iran, the DOJ, the IRS, immigration ... while dreaming of Hillary.
And now she's gone. Their dreams are shattered, and now they're wide awake ... because Trump is their Red Bull.
What phonies. They gave Trump endless airtime, while wringing their hands, thinking it was okay, because Hillary had it "in the pantsuit." But the palooka you propped up wasn't the empty can you thought he was. While mocking Trump nonstop, people stopped caring about what you thought. That Red Bull gored your butt, and now all you can do is blame him for what you helped do.
And, they say Trump targets all news, not fake news. Which is ... fake news.
They ignore the clarifications that are obvious to us. No surprise.
Remember when one of us would criticize Obama or Hillary? We'd be called a bigot. I remember that like it was yesterday. Probably because it was.
You sought to silence opinion through fear and smear, and now you pretend you're the victim. You're not oppressed, just de-pressed.
Get over it.
The media has the right to cover what it will, in the manner of its choosing. However, those of us who went to journalism school remember something about an obligation to do so responsibly. Many of us know the meaning of "fair and unbiased." We recognize wheat from chaff -- and can differentiate news from theater.
Trump takes a shot. So what?
So, ... the President takes a shot at you or your media organization.
Does that make the actual news of Presidential actions and interactions so unimportant that you feel you must first choose to whine about how you've been treated -- or how you perceive that you've been treated?
This type of omphaloskepsis may be satisfying, but it does little for your credibility among readers and viewers whose lives are affected [surely we needn't comment on avoiding the sloppy writer's inferior choice: impacted] by what actually transpired -- by what the President actually has accomplished, and not by what he may have said in a tweet or at a rally.
It amazes us that media are so blind to the irony of their being "taken in" by what the President -- and his audience -- says at a political event, using the time-honored theatrical tradition of getting the crowd on his side by creating a "fake news" stalking horse enemy for dramatic purposes.
Taking it personally means you don't get the joke.