I laugh when I hear Donald Trump’s supporters say the following: The media keep reporting on issues that don’t matter to the public.

How can I say it more clearly than this: They are wrong!

A Trumpkin said on CNN this afternoon that the media keep reporting on the Russia investigation because only the reporters, pundits and editors are interested in this issue. Rank-and-file Americans, he said, are more interested in other issues, such as the economy, global affairs, war and peace … those kinds of things.

Hold the phone, young man!

The media do not operate in a vacuum. The broadcast, cable and print media perform at the behest of their listeners, viewers and readers. The media do not march off to some cadence that only they hear.

I will put it another way: The media are for-profit institutions and organizations. They have shareholders, board members and corporate executives who are in the business of making money. Thus, they demand that their media representatives give the public what it wants. To that end, the media perform a public service and from my vantage point, the public is demanding accountability.

The media’s job is to report to the public what it demands.

When I hear these canards from Trump supporters that the media are off on some sort of “conspiracy” to topple the president, all I can do is shake my head in amazement.

I worked in print media full time for nearly 37 years. During that time I received my share of accusations of conspiracy to slant coverage or to undermine those with certain points of view. My answer usually fell along this line: We don’t have the time in my line of work to spend concocting conspiracies. It’s all we can do to get the paper out the back door every single day.

The same tenet holds true for broadcast media.

The media are doing their job. They are reporting the news the public wants to hear. When the day arrives that the public doesn’t want to know about the “Russia thing,” it will convey that preference to the media execs who will respond accordingly.