Why the media shouldn’t go to 'war’ with President Trump

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President Donald Trump has shifted lately from labeling the media “fake news” to the “enemy of the American people.” And his White House has taken an increasingly adversarial posture toward the press, including cutting off access and sharply scaling back its use of daily briefings. It seems it has decided the media is no longer worth dealing with and is much more valuable as a boogeyman. None of this is completely new, but the relationship has degraded considerably. President Trump seems to want a war with his “enemy.” But should the media oblige him? And if it doesn’t, isn’t it unilaterally disarming? A better metaphor would be that this is a game, and the media is the referee. Part of winning that game for the players may be to work the ref to try to get more favorable calls, and part of the way they may rally their fans is to make the ref into the enemy — to blame everything bad on the ref. The ref certainly wants both teams and their fans to retain faith in their judgment and fairness, but they don’t necessarily lose just because the team who is complaining the most wins the game.


Why the media shouldn’t go to 'war’ with President Trump