Never forget: Each and every week, Donald Trump gets worse.
His regime is a ladder into a bottomless pit, a place that, as Hunter S. Thompson once said of journalism, is “a cruel and shallow money trench … a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.”
In the latest round of professional malfeasance, the president’s sycophants in the communications office have launched a “Media Bias Portal” on the official White House website. They are encouraging people to give them “tips” when the public believes a member of the press has produced “Fake News.” Naturally, I took the opportunity to fill out the page and offered the White House a tip that its own communication staff is publishing “fake news.” I wonder how long I’ll be waiting for a response.
Seriously, it seems like we’re about two weeks away from Trump announcing that “all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check.” (With apologies to Fielding Mellish in “Bananas.”)
Trump is now in the end stages of his campaign to destroy free speech, independent media and all forms of dissent. He’s like the WWE Undertaker in the White House — which fits the bill nicely since the head of his communications staff, Steven Cheung, formerly worked with the WWE and loves to play the bully with members of a young and inexperienced press corps.
Trump’s entire communications staff, come to think of it, is unpredictable, inattentive, arrogant, uninformed and anti-American.
We all see it. The far right, the left and the middle can all agree that something is wrong, even if we don’t know what. What we don’t know is why so few reporters are willing to stand up and confront the president on his behavior. Former Tea Party congressman Joe Walsh even offered on social media to pay for a weekend vacation for two — travel, hotel and dining included — to any location in the world for someone who says, “Shame on you,” or “She asked a legitimate question,” or “You’re out of line, apologize to her” the next time Trump “hurls an ugly personal insult” at a reporter. “A long weekend on me to the first media member who in real time gets in Trump’s face and publicly defends their colleague,” Walsh wrote.
Peter Alexander famously did that for Jim Acosta during Trump’s first term, when the president demeaned Acosta in an East Room news conference. He wasn’t the only one. Many of us in the White House press corps stood up, at one point or another, for each other. I told Walsh I would forgo the weekend travel, but would accept a pile of “small, unmarked bills.”
Former Tea Party congressman Joe Walsh has offered to pay for a weekend vacation for two for “the first media member who in real time gets in Trump’s face and publicly defends their colleague.”
There is a good reason reporters haven’t stood up to defend one another during the current administration. Trump has engineered an inexperienced, sycophantic press corps. It’s handicapped from the moment reporters begin asking him questions, and Trump gets bolder, less professional and increasingly confrontational every time he appears before a pool spray, largely because of his success in undermining the Fourth Estate.
But maybe all hope is not lost.
Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., introduced a package of three bills on Monday that are meant to provide oversight of social media platforms, expand safeguards for children and tax advertising revenue from major tech companies. This legislation will help regulate one of the biggest problems in the media: deep fake videos, photos and disinformation. Trump has nothing to say about those issues, of course, because he has routinely contributed to the amount of lies and fiction on social media. His friends who run those companies make money from all those lies, while Trump is busy trying to blame reporters.
“These social media corporations are the most wealthy, most powerful corporations in the history of the world,” Auchincloss told Time magazine. “I believe they have been corroding our civil discourse, they’ve been ‘attention fracking’ our children and treating our youth like products, not people.”
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Auchincloss isn’t the only one trying to make a difference. Last week, Pennsylvania state Rep. Chris Rabb introduced two new bills to fund local news. Part of our problem is the lack of community journalism all across the country. Inspired by legislation for publicly funded local news that passed in New Jersey, Rabb’s bills would create a Pennsylvania Civic Information Consortium and fellowship program for early- and mid-career journalists.
The Pennsylvania action is more likely to pass than congressional action. Though Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., has enjoyed bipartisan support for nearly a decade for legislation that would allow reporters to keep their sources confidential without the threat of being jailed, it isn’t likely to come up for a vote any time soon.
The White House simply doesn’t care about factual reporting, no matter what lies Trump, Cheung and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt try to sell to the public.
The White House “media bias” portal is anything but a service to truth and transparency. Its stated purpose “is to combat the baseless lies, purposely omitted context, and outright left-wing lunacy of the Fake News Media — a tall task that demands the help of everyone who believes in facts and accuracy over Fake News.”
Yeah, well, that’s a tall task only because Trump is the actual cause of fake news. The facts show that Trump doesn’t deal with real problems, he only stirs up chaos to avoid them. He has done a great deal to hobble American journalism and the educational system we need to teach the public what the real problems are.
Trump doesn’t deal with real problems, he only stirs up chaos to avoid them. He has done a great deal to hobble American journalism and the educational system we need to teach the public what the real problems are.
Trump’s success at this is easy enough to see. He fell asleep in front of the entire world during a Cabinet meeting this week. That’s one way to end wokeness. The press said nothing. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth defended calling for a second strike on a suspected drug-running boat in the Caribbean from an air-conditioned office, saying that the press had reported fake news about the strikes from “the comfort of air-conditioned offices” and doesn’t understand the “fog of war.” This from a guy who has never been in battle.
Trump has cast himself as a relentless foe of illegal drugs, yet he also pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, freeing him from a 45-year sentence for conspiring to import tons of cocaine into the U.S. Cynics among us might say that the best way to deal drugs in the U.S. is the same way you can do any other kind of business — with Donald Trump’s permission. We barely took notice of this hypocrisy in the press, while the public at large cannot forget it. Former White House official Robert Reich noted that while Trump “says we need to go after drug cartels, he disbanded a DOJ task force that took them on.” He added, “Trump doesn’t care about drugs — he wants to be able to declare war on anyone he labels an enemy.”
Finally, there’s the secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem. Trump fell asleep at that Cabinet meeting while Secretary of State Marco Rubio was heaping lavish praise on him. Noem did him one better, thanking Trump for making sure that no hurricanes hit the American mainland this year. Again, the public should have heard more of this outrageous display of fealty, but it got very little coverage. Will Noem thank Trump next for making the sun rise tomorrow?
Reporters almost never push back anymore, either on minor or major offenses.
Overseas, Trump is seen as an embarrassment and a buffoon. The greatest concern in Europe is that NATO might face a war with Russia and Trump won’t be able to handle it. As a colleague at the BBC told me, “A former real estate developer cannot possibly stand up to a former KGB officer, who is personally responsible for many untimely deaths.”
Most of us in the media have given up objective reporting about Trump, and we rarely discuss his many problems — from his physical and mental health to his ethical and moral dilemmas.
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For the sake of the country and the rest of the world, we must do so — though it’s crystal clear that we can’t and won’t.
The White House press corps I worked with, after I walked into the briefing for the first time in 1985, rarely failed to call presidents out in public. That’s part of the job. Of course we must show respect for the office. But we should not have to stand for a president demeaning us, insulting us, refusing to interact with us and failing to recognize why we’re there. It’s not the press who are being insubordinate. He is. We’re not the enemy of the people. He is.
Or, to quote Fielding Mellish one more time, “I object, your honor! This trial is a travesty. It’s a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.”
That describes both this president and the press corps that’s supposed to cover him.
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