Dearest Reader,
Ladies and gents, today we witnessed the opening act of what we can expect will be a long-running melodrama featuring the president of the United States and the media that report on his comings and goings.
Donald J. Trump convened a press conference and began by attacking the media. It’s no surprise, of course, given his campaign-long attack on a media he accused of “rigging” the election in favor of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Trump won the election, though, but that hasn’t dissuaded him from continuing his full frontal assault on the media. Now he’s accusing some news outlets of putting out “fake news” relating to reports of Russian involvement in the hacking of Democratic computers.
He outshouted a CNN reporter today who wanted to ask him a question, calling his organization one of the bad guys among media organizations.
Today’s testy exchange with the media, I believe, signals a continuation of an assault by the president-elect. I expect it fully to continue once he actually becomes president.
It’s part of the formula that Trump parlayed to the Republican Party nomination; he appealed to the base of his party that hates the media as much as Trump now says he despises them. This is so very interesting to me, given the president-elect’s ability to play the media like a fiddle during his nomination fight and then his winning presidential campaign.
So … let’s all strap ourselves in for what appears to be a wild ride atop a rip-snorting bull.
The media’s job is to probe, to question on behalf of the public. The president’s job — whether he likes it or not — is to answer the media’s inquiries. Something tells me the new president will resist answering those questions whenever he can.