Trump’s Opposition Party

01-27-2017

In England, Tories are opposed by Labor.

In Washington, Republicans are opposed by Democrats. But now it appears President Donald Trump’s main opposition isn’t coming from Democrats on Capitol Hill, but from members of the American news media.

Trump’s Chief White House Strategist Stephen K. Bannon refers to the media as “the opposition party.”

Bannon says the media doesn’t understand the country, or why Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. He says the media was “100 percent dead wrong” about the election, and no one from the mainstream press has been fired for being “outright activists of the Clinton campaign.”

Bannon believes the media should “keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while.”

In an age where social media now dominates just about every newsroom, the pressure is on young journalists to tweet breaking news to generate clicks, views, and reads. All of us want to be the go-to source for our viewers and readers.

There’s a greater need—now more than ever—to make sure our reporting is accurate. Truth and accuracy have often suffered because of pressures on news outlets to be quick and preeminent in their reporting in the midst of a deluge of media competition.

So, why the combative attitude and acrimony between the new president and the press?

Much of it has to do with what is, and is not being reported.

Here are just several examples from Trump’s first week as president:

Time and Martin Luther King Jr.

Time’s Zeke Miller reported that a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. had been removed from the Oval Office.

Not true.

He later apologized for his uninformed tweet, explaining that his view of the bust had been obscured by a door and a secret service agent.

During Sean Hannity’s recent interview with the president, Trump said the “The bust of Martin Luther King which was falsely reported…that it was taken out of the office, when I arrived it was immediately taken out. “

“These are lying people. These are bad people,” Trump insisted. “And Martin Luther King is here…”

The president implied the apology was a half-hearted one, and that Miller’s tweet was designed to demean the president.

“They're not saying the bust is taken out, what they're saying is I'm a racist. That's what they're saying," Trump said.

Miller sent out at least a dozen Tweets correcting his mistake.

Did he intentionally try to make the president look bad, or racist?

Perhaps not, but White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer warned members of the media to get their facts straight before rushing to put information out on Twitter and other social media.

Crowd Size

Most Americans were perhaps more concerned about Trump’s speech than the Inaugural crowd size. But the size did matter to President Trump and he pointed out inaccurate reporting.

Mr. Trump felt some members of the media dishonestly misrepresented the size of the crowd based on the initial photos they had obtained:

But here’s another photo shot from Donald Trump’s vantage point:

The red arrow shows the crowd actually extended down the Mall to 14th Street, just east of the Washington Monument.

When journalists make a photo comparison, they must ensure they show photos from the same time of day and same vantage point.

They must also make an honest attempt—if there was a smaller crowd for one president over another—to determine the reason for it. Was it the weather? In this case, was it because Obama made history as the first black president? Was it because people were kept away from the mall?

Accurate reporting matters for the historic record and for journalistic integrity.

Some media members called Trump a liar for saying people were kept off the Mall. But a member of the press corps who was there verified Trump’s statement in this response to one of my Facebook posts:

 I was near the White House a few hours before the ceremony. Mass amounts of people were walking away from the capitol. I wondered why this was. So as we went the opposite direction I saw that there was a fence surrounding the mall area starting at 14 street and F. Every number street leading to the mall was blocked by security. The only access was going through a mag. In my past years of covering the Inauguration, this never existed. It was difficult and burdensome to get thru security. It makes sense why many spectators didn't make it in. I'm disappointed with how this comparison was exploited.”

Selective Editing at ABC

Former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer received an apology from ABC News after they selectively edited a statement he had made about Sean Spicer and the Trump Inaugural crowd size.

ABC implied Fleischer had bashed Spicer and quoted him as saying, “It looks to me if the ball was dropped on Saturday” after ABC referred to “deliberate falsehoods.”

Fleischer Tweeted the actual quote taken in context:

“It looks to me if the ball was dropped on Saturday; Sean recovered it and ran for a 1st down on Monday.”

ABC edited out, “Sean recovered it and ran for a 1st down on Monday.”

Their selective editing created an entirely different impression: Fleischer’s intended positive remark about Spicer’s job performance was turned into a negative, critical comment.

The CIA Visit

The standing ovation Mr. Trump received at the CIA didn’t fit into the previously reported narrative of a president off to a rocky start with the intelligence community. So, instead of reporting about the warm, approving reception the president received at Langley, some members of the media went for the sensational by placing emphasis on remarks he made about the Inaugural crowd size and how dishonoring it was to do so in front of the CIA memorial to fallen agents.

But President Trump’s feud was never really with the rank and file, it was with the top leadership at the CIA; Obama political appointees who possessed no love or loyalty for Republicans or Donald Trump.

Trump’s criticism was mostly directed at former CIA Director John Brennan for doing a “bad job” and for possibly being the source of “fake news” about his alleged ties to Russia.

Fake News on Social Media

Many examples of fake news may be found on social media. Some are designed to perpetuate a narrative that portrays the president as a despicable leader.

One recent post implied Trump disrespects women, including his wife Melania.

The narrative was, “Poor Melania, Trump won’t even open the door for his own wife!”

Take a look at this out-of- context photo:

Now, look at the video of the incident:

More fake news.

Washington Post: Mass Resignation at Foggy Bottom

The Washington Post’s reporting of recent U.S. State Department resignations made it appear that Trump’s presidency is an administration in crisis; implying that the en masse resignations-- from the highest levels of State—were a result of his policies.

The Post said the resignations were a “part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior Foreign Service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era.”

The report said the “long-serving undersecretary for management, Patrick Kennedy” who had been in the job for nine years “and three of his top officials resigned unexpectedly…”

 “It’s the single biggest simultaneous departure of institutional memory that anyone can remember, and that’s incredibly difficult to replicate,” said David Wade…”

Really? The Washington Post should know better than to report this untruth.

Truthfully, incoming administrations--especially when there is a change from Republican to Democrat, or Democrat to Republican request the resignation of senior government staffers. That’s because they want to appoint their own people, those who think like them, who will be loyal to the new president.

This is standard practice for each new administration.

Good Reason

So, Trumps’ first week in office is now complete, but the acrimony between his administration and the press is unlikely to end anytime soon.

And for a good reason.

Whether the media’s reporting of Trump is just reckless or intentional, it is no wonder the media’s approval rating is now down to seventeen percent, while Trump’s stands at fifty-nine percent.

And no surprise that Stephen K. Bannon, and many other Americans, view the media as “the opposition party.”

 

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