January 25, 2017--Why Trump People Hate the Media

Trump people don't hate all the media, Fox News remains a staple, but they do hate the so-called "mainstream media."

And, at time, who can blame them?

Take yesterday's above-the-fold story in the New York Times about Donald Trump's meeting Monday night at the White House with congressional leaders--"Meeting With Top Lawmakers, Trump Repeats an Election Lie."

The headline writer and managing editor opted to call Trump's claim or untruth a lie.

It was during the primary campaign that the L-word came into universal usage. Perhaps because even staid outlets such as the Times wanted to get with the tell-it-like-it-is business or felt that to be competitive with the upstart on-line publications and bloggers they needed to ramp up their journalistic rhetoric.

Then there is the article itself. Rather than being about the meeting with members of Congress, the Times devoted all of the text that appeared on the front page to the lie. The real story--about the important meeting--was buried on the jump page.

And in the first paragraph itself, the choice of words was hot for a paper that prides itself on being the "paper of record."

President Trump used his first official meeting with congressional leaders on Monday to falsely claim that millions of unauthorized immigrants had robbed him of a popular vote majority, a return to his obsession with the election's results even as he seeks support for his legislative agenda. [Italics added]

Falsely I can live with, but obsession, a diagnostic term? On the other hand, how about deleting falsely since that speaks for itself and substituting concerns for obsession?

Admittedly that would have rendered the piece boring but my suggested edits would have been rejected since the original draft was designed not for light but for heat and click-throughs.

I get it. But also hate what we have become.