'This Is An Emergency': Left-Leaning Sites Grapple With Trump's Attempts To Undercut The Media

Top media figures may not openly acknowledge it, but they're at war with President Donald Trump, whose rhetorical assault on many major media outlets has been undeterred by his ascension to the nation's highest office.

During a Thursday event at New York University titled "Not The New Normal: How The Media Should Cover The Trump Presidency," top media figures from Slate, The Huffington Post, The New Yorker, and Univision ruminated — and at times fretted — over how their outlets planned to proceed in face of a White House that uses its own "alternative facts" and remains actively hostile to the news media.

"This is an emergency," New Yorker editor David Remnick said, repeatedly urging media outlets to "buck up."

"Everything is fragile. Magazines are fragile. Television stations are fragile. NYU may not last until the 400th century, who knows? And it's demanded of us to vouchsafe that which is valuable, and invaluable, and constitutional."

If Trump's frequent, occasionally personal critiques of opponents during the campaign disturbed some reporters, the first days of his presidency were an equally ominous sign that the press would face years of opposition from a president who seems eager to battle for every factual inch.

Reports have indicated that Trump's administration almost immediately set about putting gag orders on several government departments upon taking power, barring them from releasing information to the public and to the press. (White House press secretary Sean Spicer has denied this.)

At the CIA on Saturday, Trump dismissed his feud with the intelligence community as an outcome of his "running war with the media," whom the president dubbed the "most dishonest people on earth." Later the same day, Spicer delivered a terse statement chastising media reports

We don’t need the “old gotcha” press conferences with the whining and lying liberal mediots attacking our president. We are tired of the mediots lying and telling us what to believe and how to vote! Ban them from the White House. Trump’s comments and statements are for his voters, and we don’t need lying liberal mediots to tell us what he says to us.

Official Washington is being traumatized by the tweets of Donald Trump.

Politico has chronicled the pearl clutching concern by the inside the beltway types over Trump's tweets. It seems Trump speaking directly to the people via Twitter is causing a crisis among mediots, politicians and lobbyists, who just don't know how to handle it as reflected in the article title, Trump’s Twitter feed traumatizes Washington.

There is absolutely no law that say’s anyone has to read a newspaper, a magazine or turn on a tv or a computer for any reason at all, certainly not for the news. Even before Trump ever considered running the print media was dying. At one point the NY Time’s stock was worth less than the papers daily price which I think might be as much as $2.00. The Leftist media is in a panic because they’re losing an audience and they have no idea as what to do about it.

I kid you not, here in NJ I’ve seen 3 stories in the last week about the homeless problem after silence for years.

Six weeks ago a homeless man died in a church basement where the pastor let some stay; it was briefly mentioned in the news then forgotten because OBAMA WAS STILL PRESIDENT.

Once people know the game, it is incredible how easy this crap is to spot...

It will get better when and if you re-discover “journalism” and “integrity”

For business reasons, journalism has always been about bad news. If the headline worries you, you find it difficult to avoid reading further. Although journalism claims to be about the pubic interest, it is actually about interesting the public - which is not the same thing.
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evi - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)
Inasmuch as journalism focuses on the failures and limited benevolence of people, journalism is negative toward society. In full knowledge of its own negativity, journalism claims objectivity. But what is cynicism, if not the belief that negativity is objective? Clearly “objective journalism” is cynical. At least towards society.
Inasmuch as journalism controls PR and therefore believes that it controls public opinion and thereby controls democratic government, journalism is positive - to the point of naïveté - toward the (potential, at least) benefit of government.
IMHO, cynicism towards society combined with naïveté towards government is the precise description of socialism (what in America journalists - and other socialists - began calling “liberalism” in the 1920s). Such people are naturally the “writers who have so confounded society with government, as to leave ~~little or~~ no distinction between them.” Conflation of “society” (“in every state a blessing) with “government”(at best a necessary evil) is, of course, a slander on society and puffery of government.

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