Everyone knows about President Trump's ongoing love affair with the mainstream media (and vice-versa). By now (unless you've been living under a rock in Antarctica somewhere), we've all heard the phrase "fake news" being hurled about repeatedly. And, we have all heard such bastions of truth (smell that? Pure sarcasm!) as CNN and MSNBC complain that the President is picking on them.
The truth is, the whole damned mess has gone too far, on both sides.
Just this morning, I caught an interview in which a reporter was commenting on Trump's "apparent mental issues". She was claiming that the President is secretly suffering from a form of dementia, and hinting that this could be grounds to remove him from office. (And, this is what passes for "real news" now days?)
The last I checked, only the President's doctor (the one who actually examines him) can make such a diagnosis, and he isn't talking.
The reporter then went on to claim that the press wouldn't be so hard on him, if the President didn't attack them so often. This is a false argument, since it's a two-way street. The mainstream media is far from an innocent victim in all of this.
First of all, in the past year, there have been more retraction, corrections and all-out debunked news stories surrounding Trump than I have ever seen in my entire life. It is the duty of the news media to present the verified facts of a story without partisanship, bias, opinion or spin. They're not supposed to allow their own personal views, feelings or agendas to enter the story in any way. And, they certainly not allowed to invent or exaggerate details, or insert themselves into the story.
Recent studies show that, in the first year of his Presidency, Trump has only received 5% positive press over all the stories reported by the media. Compare this to Obama's first year, where he only received 20% negative coverage. Can you honestly call that "fair and unbiased"?
Trump has accomplished quite a bit of positive things during his first year (a Supreme Court nominee appointed, the cutting of several restrictive regulations for businesses, record breaking tax cuts... to name a few, and I could go on). He hasn't exactly been perfect, but he's far from the incompetent monster the media tries to make him out to be.
The press also loves to point out that the President's poll numbers have remained in the mid-to-high thirties. Granted, this is bad, but let's look at the whole picture here...
First of all, the President's poll numbers are low, true enough, but nowhere near as low as those for Congress (currently 22%), or even the media's (16%). This means, as mistrustful as the American people may be of Donald Trump, they are even more so of their congressmen and news media. So, they really have no room to talk.
Secondly, of course Trump's numbers are going to be low! If I am the only one you listen to, and all I tell you everyday is that Bob is a thief and liar who beats his wife and kids... are you going to have a very high opinion of Bob? Most (but not all) of the coverage on the President has been very negative personal attacks. I rarely hear any negative, factual attacks on his policies themselves.
People watch, read and listen to the mainstream media because they have no choice, if they want any clue as to what's going on in the world. But, that doesn't mean that they're stupid, and unaware they're being lied to regularly.
The ones I truly feel sorry for, are the older generations like my mother. She's old enough that she feels she has no use for the internet, or even cable T.V. This means, she's completely at the mercy of Liberal run network television and newspapers, with almost no hope of getting the other side of the story, or even the whole picture. It's people like these, that the media is deliberately doing a gross disservice to, and constantly misleading. It's pathetic and disturbing at best.
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