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Home End the Media

End the Media

Last week the media lost its mind over reports that press briefings might be moved from the White House back to the Eisenhower Office Building next door where President Eisenhower held the first ever televised press conference.

Media outlets issued panicked reports of being “evicted”, “kicked out” or “exiled” from the cramped theater that used to be the White House’s indoor swimming pool. There was outrage at the thought that they might have to take an equally short walk to the White House Conference Center where they had already worked while the Bush White House spent millions in taxpayer money renovating the room.

"The press went crazy, so I said, 'Let's not move it.'" President Trump finally reassured them.

He got as much gratitude for it as President Nixon did for ruining a perfectly good indoor pool and as President Bush did for spending a fortune renovating it. Instead the media began spreading the same conspiracy theories accusing Bush of plotting to permanently banish them from the White House.

And that’s exactly what President Trump should do.

“There’s no way the people are being served if they kick the people’s representatives out of the People’s House,” Ron Fournier absurdly postured. The people elected President Donald J. Trump. Nobody elected Ron Fournier. The National Journal he works for, like most of the Atlantic media properties, specializes in inside baseball for insiders.

Trust ratings and approval levels for the media are so far down in the toilet that it would take a plumber to find them. If the media are the people’s representatives, then the people want to elect different ones. Those are some of the same representatives that the media is trying to ban from social media with a fake “Fake News Crusade” and by resisting any expansion of press briefings with threats and warnings.

“We’ll have to consider doing things other than protesting and whining,” Fournier threatened. “We’ll have to think about what we can do to bring some pain to make our point.”

Do what?

Run items accusing President Trump of being a traitor, a liar, a racist, a rapist and a Batman villain? The media has already done all of those. What else is it going to except shout more lies even louder?

Within a brief span of time, the media’s fake news operation claimed that Trump had banished the bust of MLK, lifted quotes from a Batman villain and had been cavorting with Russian prostitutes.

And that he was a compulsive liar.

That last accusation is notably hilarious considering the honesty and integrity of the media.

We have had to endure days of the media screaming about crowd sizes at the inauguration and the anti-Trump march they were promoting, of claiming that a sentiment as generic as returning power to the people was lifted from a Batman villain, and of dismissing the worst abuses of their colleagues, whether it was lying about the MLK bust, lying about Rick Perry’s job or peddling the lies of the Steele dossier as intelligence work, as mistakes while shouting that Sean Spicer was a liar. Enough is enough.

Margaret Sullivan, the Washington Post’s media columnist and former public editor of the New York Times, declared, “President Trump intends to make the American media his foremost enemy.”

If she had a shred of honesty, she would admit that the media had made him its foremost enemy.

The media will tell any lie about Trump. It starts every day by accusing him of a dozen different things. And it ends every day by accusing him of a dozen others. It has no standards and no ethics. When one lie, such as the claim that Trump had banished the bust of Martin Luther King, falls apart, they roll out another one. Then they inflate the lie they just told by reporting on it as if it were an actual event. It’s time to get the press out and restore the White House indoor swimming pool to its original function. The press can remain in it if they don’t mind wet clothes, moldy laptops and ruined cameras.

Press conferences used to be called in the Oval Office and reporters would hang out close to the action. Then, largely Republican presidents, helped make the media’s occupation permanent. And its sense of entitlement grew. It now believes that it has more of a right to be there than President Trump.

President Trump should disabuse them of that delusion.

When we talk about the media, we really mean the representatives of a handful of corporations who are in the business of advocating for the left and attacking the right. There is no journalism involved in all this: only opposition research. The distinction between the media and the political left no longer exists.

There is no reason to embed a voice of the political opposition in the White House whose only function is using the press briefings as platforms for their smears. Nor is there any reason to provide special status to a handful of corporate left-wing operatives while leaving out the rest of the spectrum.

Trump has been opening up more opportunities for conservative media. And that’s a good thing.

The media’s tantrums over being moved from the little theater, no matter how moldy and crumbling it might be, isn’t sentiment; it’s status. Keeping the space small allows them to limit who gets in.

It’s time to open it up.

After the tantrum the media threw over Spicer’s briefing, there is no reason to keep their private club around. Move it out of the White House and open it up to various journalists across the spectrum.

The media hates the idea of Trump tweeting. They ought to get used to it. Their old form of access journalism with its layers of privilege, anonymous sources and selective leaks is the old way. And it makes no sense to provide access journalism to a media whose only agenda is soliciting malicious leaks.

Digital access isn’t the future. It’s the present.

The White House press corps is an outmoded institution. There’s no need to crowd a small number of media elites into a limited space. Or any space at all. We live in a world of instantaneous communications. Every smartphone is capable of doing more than the laptops that reporters were laboring over in the Clinton years. Any of the men and women in that room can email or text their questions. The briefings serve no useful function except as political theater by a privileged class.

President Trump has vowed to drain the swamp. A good place to start is the smarmy swamp of privilege over the White House indoor pool. The small club of the press corps is the embodiment of the old establishment and its corrupt gatekeepers that he has vowed to get rid of. Instead of sparring with them in briefings, it’s time to eliminate their special status and strip them of their privileges.

Trump doesn’t have to go to war with the press corps. All he has to do is make it irrelevant.

Comments

  1. Steve D25/1/17

    'That last accusation is notably hilarious considering the honesty and integrity of the media.'

    It's completely true though. Trump and the media (and Hillary and Obama for that matter) are compulsive liars and should be treated as such.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Infidel25/1/17

    One odd thing that just occurred to me today is that MSM is no longer a good source for certain hard information. For example I came across a couple stories about Venezuela concerning niche interests of mine in specialized, off the main road media, that don't seem to have been covered at all in MSM. I guess MSM is hurting so bad financially that they have been reduced to using hack writers who "literally know nothing" to spin sensationalist narratives, kinds like the National Enquirer used to do. I guess the best experts in specialized areas are now working for the off the main road sites.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Infidel25/1/17

    Oh, another point (sorry for the multiple comments). Now, when one MSM site posts a false story, other MSM sites pick it up and repeat the falsehoods, apparently without checking. And they are extremely careless when repeating stories, dropping things in the original story that make the new story false. Noticed that when they arrested that terrorist lady in Rodeo, California, which is 25 miles from San Francisco. Some outlets like Fox got it right. Some just said "near San Francisco". Then a bunch of outlets said "in San Francisco".

    (there is a huge difference between Rodeo and San Francisco).

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous25/1/17

    Excellent piece, you should send this as a suggestion to POTUS and his team!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous26/1/17

    Eight years of softball questions to Democrats and now righteous rage against Trump tell us who these media are. They could ignore the legislative Republican geldings, and they did. It's still all editorial and no reporting, much less accurate, investigative reporting.

    We'd better take the Internet Domain Name System back from the Esperanto pansies before they squeeze off our firehose to real news. Trump is fighting sabotage on all fronts; here the oxygen of our informed, awakening citizenry must keep flowing.

    Multiple, competing, redundant sources of information inspire my confidence. Glib, condescending Barbie and Ken Bots revolt me.

    Throw the bums out!

    ABSJ1136

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous26/1/17

    Mr. Greenfield would the new FCC commissioner, who opposes 'net neutrality have any potential influence over the counter-jihad bloggers and websites? What about the USA giving up administration of the ICANN to the internationale?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks. This article spells it out very nicely. We bought the media's portrayal of Trump as a carnival barker/clown and have been proved wrong. Let's make sure to check the source in the future, as the old saying says, "Take it from whence it comes."

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous26/1/17

    All he has to do is make it irrelevant.
    The hissy fit that the media threw when they didn't get called on first was a classic.
    Alternate days with alternate media outlets with the major ones and release important news with the alternate media outlets.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Trump teaches Spicer how to tweet. Problem solved.

    ReplyDelete
  10. We need to have a news source where articles or interveisw like this one will reach more people , including young folks , inlcuding people who "do't watch the news."

    This can be done easily at verylow expense. Does anyone want to join me.

    ReplyDelete
  11. What is the email address for Sultan Knish ? My darn computer won't dislay it when I press the contact button.

    Dr.George Zilbergeld

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous26/1/17

    Steve D has no facts in evidence that Trump lies all the time.
    He's the most truthful president, the most candid! we've had in decades.
    Great article, as usual, Daniel. I agree that Trump should move the enemy hive off-premises. At least Spicer should mention that they are 95% Dem and 0% Republican in the WH press corps.
    The first amendment protections were designed for a free press that was serving as the eyes and ears of the body politic: not to protect a leftwing propaganda industry. They still claim the protection without earning it by providing us citizens with accurate information.
    Media delenda est.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I like that he is banning immigration from certain muslim countries, however, does this mean that the Christians or Jews attempting to flee won't be allowed to seek asylum, or does this only pertain to the ability to get a visa? Can anyone help me out on this?

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  14. Trump should announce he ill not be attending the White House Correspondents Dinner this year. The WHCD has become a disgusting, incestuous celebrity status gala. Trump should not only not attend, but say publicly that it should be canceled and why.

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  15. The White House Correspondents Association website says the WHCD is April 29, 2017. President Trump should not attend this pathetic event. Also, Wikipedia says that the WHCA assigns seating for the press in the White House Press Briefings Room. What a joke! Move it out of the White House.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Media people in exile:(

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous29/1/17

    Excellent article!

    One tidbit of info (a "fact"...GASP!) on the small, teeny tiny aspect of the Inauguration crowd size:
    looking at the CNN "gigapixel" photo,
    scan over to the right, along Pennsylvania Avenue.
    The clock tower in the distance is on
    the former Old Post Office, now the Trump Int'l Hotel.
    The clock IS perfectly functional, and reads 12:20pm.

    THAT'S how yuuuge the crowd was during the Inauguration.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Infidel22/2/17

    Just read an amazing egregiously bad case of fake news going around California media about my old city. Don't know how to explain it exactly. Starts with a story in LA Times, with the facts all wrong, no local knowledge by the reporter, statements taken out of context. Spreads to newspapers throughout the state, noone checks the facts. Even spreads to PBS, so much for the integrity of PBS, even when they are speaking about a classically liberal city you would think they would respect as one of their own. Then they interview the mayor, finally cut him off when he doesn't agree with their fantastically fallacious narrative, and take what he said out of context (I mean way out of context, speaking about the state pension plan crisis, they make it sound like he is talking about the city, which has been getting awards for excellent fiscal management, best management team of any liberal city in California).

    Well, what to say. A false story of garbage level quality goes round and round for weeks or months or years, noone checks it, statements are taken out of context and misconstrued, completely turning the truth on its head, making the best seem the worst. So much for American MSM today. Just dead wrong on every point.

    ReplyDelete

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