America, we have a problem. You don’t have to stare at the empty space that was once the East Wing of the White House to understand that.
But, solving this problem requires a specific set of skills. Skills acquired over a very long career. Skills that make you a nightmare for those who pretend to understand. Sometimes they are a nightmare for those who possess them.
“It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you’re the smartest person in the room,” the network news vice president said to Jane Craig, played by Holly Hunter, in “Broadcast News.”
“No. It’s awful,” she replied.
She was right. This is my lane. I own it.
But to be objective, there is no such thing as objectivity. Objectivity is subjective. Any reporter telling you they are being objective is either lying or doesn’t understand reality or both. Journalism is the art of using the scientific method to communicate facts to the public. There are no absolutes. Forty years in this business has taught me one inescapable fact: You cannot understand or treat the disease that has stricken the news media unless you’ve worked in it while wearing a variety of hats.
We all share a reality, and as President Donald Trump proves, some of us have more influence on that reality than others. Just look at the pictures of the East Wing demolition. It’s symbolic of the problem. To keep the playing field level and fair, reporters need to provide vetted, factual information to the public. We need to update our facts as the needs dictate, and we should apply the same standards uniformly for every story we cover. We need to question everything our government does — no matter who is doing it.
Many reporters and news organizations have abandoned these ideals. They’ve sacrificed accuracy for access and facts for profits. Thus the journalism world is having one hell of a difficult time communicating with its audience — unless we lace our news with Pavlovian cues. We can trigger you, anger you and perhaps influence you to purchase certain goods, but we have a real hard time accurately informing you about anything.
Still, that’s not the problem. That’s a symptom of the problem.
The problem is government. During my career, I have witnessed presidents, Congress, courts, state and local governments dismantle free speech, whether they’re denying press credentials, invading newsrooms, jailing reporters or suing media owners. I’ve seen it in print, television, radio and online. At the same time, the government has encouraged media consolidation and allowed large companies to take over the business while working with the owners so each gets something mutually beneficial. The government destroys media independence while the owners maximize their profits. Today only a handful of companies own and operate nearly 90% of what you see, read or hear while the government controls the companies that supply the news.
Is there partisan bias in news coverage? Of course. But it’s a byproduct of profits. Follow the money.
This is no secret told out of school. This isn’t speculation. This is American journalism, which is growing more inept and less able to do its job thanks to the government.
What does the government do to fill the gap, to supply information the country can digest? These days it offers a child who wallows in puerile salaciousness while being totally empty of experience, knowledge or professionalism. We get Presidential Pep Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
She is Donald Trump’s White House mouth piece. Thankfully she doesn’t get much airtime, because it’s often a pre-pubescent, darkly comic, rage-induced tragedy when she does. She, and every other high-ranking member of Trump’s current regime, are destined to go down in history as the most feckless, angriest group of criminal incompetents ever gathered under one roof.
Leavitt is worse than most because of her lack of experience — and complete lack of self-awareness. As a parent, the first time I saw one of my sons talk out of their posterior on a subject they knew nothing about, I laughed. If I did that with Leavitt, I fear I’d soon laugh myself into a coma.
It is simply best to not take Leavitt seriously. Obviously Trump doesn’t. At most, she’s assigned one show a week in the White House circus.
It is simply best to not take Leavitt seriously. Obviously Trump doesn’t. At most, she’s assigned one show a week in the White House circus. Still, that didn’t keep House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., from torching her recently over her attacks on Democrats during the government shutdown.
Last Friday, Leavitt claimed that the Democrats’ base is made up of “Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.” If it sounded like something Trump would say, then you get the point. Leavitt is perfect: Exuberant, eager and engaged, with the mental acumen of an abandoned sock puppet.
In response, Jefferies called her “sick,” “demented” and a “stone cold liar.” Why would he even engage and respond to this childish stunt? Doing so only validates Leavitt’s bad behavior. We should be thankful she briefs so infrequently; it takes a palate cleanser, three showers and a dose of exfoliant to handle even the 30 minutes that we get out of the pep secretary once a week. Any more of her on stage and somebody would have to steam the carpets and send in plumbers.
Leavitt has no more concept of what she’s doing than a rat understands why it’s running in a maze. To her, it’s all about Dingus Don and his fabulous five inner circle. Whether she believes God infused Trump with supernatural powers, or she’s convinced only he can save us, it makes no difference.
Her loyalty is not to the United States. Her loyalty is to Trump and to whatever he says. Even if he contradicts himself or is caught in a lie or is shown to be the buffoon that he is, she will always hum his political tune. She often lies, and either smiles or yells at the press as she does so.
Leavitt’s staunch devotion to the president apparently justifies treating people rudely and with contempt. She obviously doesn’t understand that the president leads a nation instead of a cadre of cultists, whether it be MAGA or Christian Nationalists. The job is to represent everyone, and having your pep secretary say that those who disagree with your politics are criminals is not the type of team building your average youth sports coach would support, though obviously Trump does.
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Her childish behavior doesn’t end there. Recently, HuffPost’s veteran White House reporter S.V. Date contacted Leavitt via text message to ask about another proposed meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that was scheduled to occur in Budapest, the site of a 1994 agreement in which Russia promised to not invade Ukraine in return for the country giving up the nuclear weapons it retained after the fall of the Soviet Union.
After mentioning this historical context, Date asked, “Who picked Budapest?”
“Your mom did,” Leavitt responded minutes later.
After Date asked Leavitt if she thought her response was funny, she replied: “It’s funny to me that you actually consider yourself a journal [sic]. You are a far left hack who nobody takes seriously, including your colleagues in the media, they just don’t tell you that to your face. Stop texting me your disingenuous, biased, and bulls**t questions.”
On Monday, Leavitt told her 1.6 million followers on X: “For context, S.V. Dáte of the Huffington Post is not a journalist interested in the facts. He is a left-wing hack who has consistently attacked President Trump for years and constantly bombards my phone with Democrat talking points. Just take a look at @svdate’s feed, it reads like an anti-Trump personal diary.”
So what? The perceived bias of a reporter or organization is not a prerequisite for answering questions or entertaining them. I remember when Mike McCurry, former White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton, would entertain all kinds of questions from a wide variety of reporters — including a defrocked minister who used to ask about Bigfoot and UFOs. McCurry never belittled anyone, though occasionally the Bigfoot questions would cause other reporters to snicker.
Sadly, Trump’s actions, while severe, are not unique. I was there and remember when a previous president tried to freeze out a news organization. During the Obama administration, the White House said that Fox News was not a news organization but the “communications arm” of the Republican Party. Obama simply tried to keep Fox out of a “pool” interview, and in response CNN, ABC, and CBS boycotted the interview.
Leavitt’s snarky quip offered as an answer sounded like it came from a high school prom committee. Coming from the primary spokesperson for the president of the United States, it was unbelievably unprofessional.
Today the press corps is so depleted, and so lacking in backbone, that no one has sprung forward to defend Date’s right to ask a legitimate question. Leavitt’s snarky quip offered as an answer sounded like it came from a high school prom committee. Coming from the primary spokesperson for the president of the United States, it was unbelievably unprofessional.
Trump creates a reality and routinely makes up facts to support it. At best, the White House press corps acts as stenographers, taking down what the administration spits out and regurgitating it for an increasingly misinformed electorate. At worst, we’re propagandists, amplifying lies with eager, fresh-faced spins of our own.
Remember, I own this lane. Having worked in nearly every capacity — from reporter to executive editor, and on every platform news is presented — it is our job to question everything a president does or says. President Ronald Reagan’s acting press secretary Larry Speakes once said that we shouldn’t tell him how to stage the news and he wouldn’t tell us how to present the news.
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The Trump administration stages the news, tells us how to present it, cuts out those who won’t bend their knee. And most reporters and organizations — eager to keep their access and their jobs, and to remain profitable — smile and eat a big ol’ feces sandwich. If you disagree, simply read the news about what the Pentagon has done. You’ll see there is no more independent press, only right-wing fluffers.
Since Reagan, every president I’ve covered has wanted to, at one point or another, flush the press down a large toilet and call it a day. Sometimes, you could even say it was warranted — but that would be a lie. However good or bad the press is, our system of government demands it be unfettered — not on the faith of finding salient facts, but on the mere chance of doing so.
The number of people who have the specific set of skills needed to fix this problem are dwindling. As the press becomes more subservient and less independent, the first-hand knowledge needed to even stage a fight to get our mojo back is a whisper in the ether — a pale ghost telling us what we could be, while sighing deeply at what we’ve become.
Take a good long look at what once was the East Wing. Part of the People’s House has been destroyed without discussion, and it will soon be rebuilt in the image of a king. It’s the perfect symbol of our country and our press.
