The media botched this Trump story last week — and that’s bad for everyone

[Commentary] Communication between the Executive and mainstream media, and with it coverage of the Trump administration, has already come unhinged. The problem originates in part in the blizzard of executive orders issuing or leaking from the White House — some of them signed and others mere drafts — that officials have done little to explain to Cabinet agencies, much less the press. Then there is the already established proclivity of press secretary Sean Spicer and other spokespersons to retail brazen untruths, at the apparent urging of the boss, amid a stream of insults directed at reporters. The result is that even when the White House does something ordinary, it may be portrayed as radical and dangerous, and even when it tells the truth, it is not believed. The story of the National Security Council reorganization is a good case in point.

[Diehl is the Washington Post’s Deputy Editorial Page Editor]