Arathain Kelvar wrote:
Meh, here's the problem. I think if Trump is successful, he'll solve a lot of problems, or set the environment for problems to be solved, but here's the reality. He's a political amateur, he's very rough around the edges. So any successful administration will undoubtedly be lined with more than his share of "holy crap, he did what??" scenarios. And of course, that's what will make the news, and what people will remember.
I think you're right, but I don't think you went quite far enough - the media deeply resents Trump, partly because they don't like his policies, and partly because they pulled out all the stops once it became obvious he was a real threat. Trump did not need to appease the media to win, and they resent that deeply - even some of the more conservative outlets will hint at it from time to time.
Therefore, almost
anything he does will be "holy crap he did what?". Remember the meltdown days after the election over going a few blocks to eat steak without the entire media corps trailing behind. That was treated as a blatant disregard for the role of the media in democracy - getting something to eat.
This is a dangerous situation because lets suppose Trump
really does do something truly over the top - nothing like what he's done now, which is just called "what happens when someone gets to govern without being scared of negative liberal press." The media has already beaten its own credibility on him to death and is starting in on the corpse. (And those that haven't, such as Sean Hannity aren't any better because they're in the tank for him.) With the exception of a few people that behaved somewhat respectably such as Lester Holt and Chris Wallace, few people are likely to take them seriously, and in the worst cases there are outright bigots being allowed to have access to major media outlets because they're the righ't kind of bigot, such as Charles Blow at NYT.
The media needs to start taking its own internal ethics and standards seriously again, and it could start with "no activism on company time."