In its Attempt to Destroy Trump, the Mainstream Media is Destroying Itself

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, April 6, 2018:  

So committed is the mainstream media in the United States to their purpose – destroy Trump in any way they can – that it took a foreign journalist to point out to them what they are really doing. Writing in the U.S. edition of the liberal British news magazine The Week, journalist Matthew Walther, said:

It’s not surprising that after little more than a year in office, many people who voted for the president still support him. But it’s also surprising that a president who has been the object of more negative reporting than any in our history still enjoys something like the same middling base of support he had before taking office.

Unless it’s the negative reporting that is the problem, which I suspect is very largely the case….

Walther makes the case that if the mainstream media hadn’t abandoned its primary mission as the fourth estate – to bring full-blown fair and honest conversation about current affairs to the public – and instead decided to make its primary, if not only, mission to destroy Trump and his administration, things might be turning out differently:

There was, I like fondly to imagine, a different course that might have been taken here. It is just possible, I suppose, that members of my profession could have exercised their reasoning faculties to decide what in the administration was good, what was bad, what was unremarkable or indistinguishable from what any modern president would do, what was painfully idiotic, what was, perhaps, evil.

We chose not to exercise this responsibility. Instead we decided to indulge in our live-action role playing fantasies about being brave selfless journos taking on a mean demagogue because we love the Constitution so much.

Trump’s public approval has not only remained fairly constant over the 14 months since his inauguration, it has begun to improve. On Tuesday, the president tweeted his thanks to Rasmussen Polling: “Thank you to Rasmussen for the honest polling. Just hit 50%, which is higher than Cheatin’ Obama at the same time in his administration.” This is the third time since the first of the year that polls have reported public approval of the president at or above 50 percent.

What has really annoyed the liberals populating the mainstream media isn’t Rasmussen. They have long ago written off this outfit as being in the bag for Republicans. It was instead a poll from CNN that came out a few days earlier, which showed just how much Trump’s approval rating had improved. As Newt Gingrich explained, “the result was so shocking that CNN commentator Chris Cillizza, who is normally deeply anti-Trump, had to spend time analyzing [the results] in which the president performed so much better in March than he did in February”:

In the CNN poll, President Trump saw big gains with men (8 points), young voters (8 points), middle-aged voters (9 points), and college graduates (10 points). Cillizza called the increases among younger and college educated voters “intriguing,” and said they were “most likely” due to the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

It could have something to do with the American people’s increasing disgust over the mainstream media itself. In its poll released on March 26, Rasmussen reported that “52 percent of likely U.S. voters believe when most reporters write or talk about the president, they are trying to block him from passing his agenda.” This, added Rasmussen, was “up from 44 percent a year ago and 47 percent in August.”

Gingrich said that the mainstream media’s unrelenting attack on the president – whatever his policy moves or changes he makes in his administration – has “vaccinated” the American public against those continuing attacks.

Walther wrote that the media has succeeded, not in its mission to destroy Trump, but in destroying itself: “The work of MSNBC and the New York Times and PolitiFact is complete. Millions of Americans do not know the difference between what is true and what is false and have decided that they do not much care, either.”

By turning off the American public, the media has left itself with few options. If it all-of-a-sudden decides not to attack Trump, but instead to begin to treat him respectfully and fully, without its present agenda, who would believe them? Most would know the change would be intentionally self-serving: calling after a lost love to return to their arms after a lover’s quarrel. If they persist in their purpose, more and more Americans will just continue to call it “noise” without substance.

The good news is that millions of other Americans, wanting to know what’s really going on, are seeking other more reliable sources for their news. Many in the past have gone to the Drudge Report for a quick scan of reliable sources on relevant topics. And now there’s WhatFinger, the website that is determined to replace Drudge, offering a website that separates real news from fake news, and noting each article accordingly. There’s even a section reserved just for “fake news,” making it even easier for interested citizens to navigate the murky waters of political and economy commentary.

Nature, of course, abhors a vacuum. As the mainstream media shrinks in both size and credibility, other more dependable and accurate sources are taking its place. What’s interesting is that it took a foreign journalist to point out the obvious to them.

Sources:

EagleRising.com: Is the Media Overreaction Making Trump More Popular?

Washington Examiner: Trump thanks Rasmussen Reports for ‘honest polling’ of his approval rating

Sean Hannity: TRUMP BUMP: The President’s Approval POPS to 51% Ahead of 2018 Midterms

DailyMail.co.uk: Every point counts! Trump tweets out a poll which shows he now has a 51 per cent approval rating … his best in a year

FoxNews.com: Newt Gingrich: President Trump is up, elite media are down

RealClearPolitics.com: President Trump Job Approval

Rasmussen Reports: Voters See Reporters As More Anti-Trump These Days

TheWeek.com: Why Trump is more popular than ever

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