Quandary

When a president speaks, it's news.
When a president speaks nonsense, is it still news?

   News media are in a quandary over how to cover the comments of the current president of the United States of America.
   Many of his comments, suggestions, implications, urgings, demands and proposals about economic policy, immigration and other things are at times so rife with inaccuracies, falsehoods, irrelevant side issues and misleading distractions that avoid the question put to him as to make many listeners wonder, in the words of a Swedish government leader, "What has he been smoking?"
   It turns out that the president's comments on an alleged crime wave in Sweden perpetrated by immigrants and supposedly covered up by its government was based on a half-hearing of an interview with a documentary film maker who claimed that the problem had been going on for months.
   The interview was broadcast over the Fox News channel on Friday night. And the host, Tucker Carlson, even questioned the veracity of the claim as soon as it was made. The following evening, however, the president said in a speech, "Look at what happened in Sweden last night," suggesting that there was in fact widespread violence that very night.
   So the question facing news editors and reporters is this: Should the media ignore nonsense, even that spread by a president, or give it more space because it is nonsense.
   In turn, this prompts more questions:
   -- Who decides whether it's nonsense?
   -- Who decides where to put the story, on Page One or deep inside, assuming the story is used at all?
   --  How much space does nonsense deserve?
   --  Is it dangerous nonsense or merely harmless hyperbole?

   Similar questions face broadcast news editors. They are questions that editors must deal with every hour of every day, and they must be answered quickly, often under deadline pressure. Which in broadcasting is constant.

   The deciding factor is this: Whenever the president speaks, it is potentially news. But how important his words are is a decision to be made by editors, not by government.
   Many politicians -- especially the current president -- seem to feel that whatever they say and do must be met with favorable and sympathetic coverage by the news media. Otherwise, "the press is the enemy of the people."
   Not so. As noted by this editor more than 20 years ago, when covering the real estate industry, many corporate executives believe that if you are not an advocate for their position, you are therefore an adversary. And adversaries are to be treated as enemies.
   The current president grew up in the real estate industry, and has carried that same attitude with him into politics and government. And now, more than ever before, journalists are neither advocates nor adversaries. We  ask tough questions because they need to be asked, and we do so on behalf of readers and viewers.
   That does not make us your enemy. And when reporters realize they are being manipulated, they sharpen their pencils and ask even tougher questions.
   But when it comes to nonsense, especially the dangerous kind, that's an important story, and when it's spouted by the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, it belongs on the top of Page One.
   And if you don't like it, stop spouting nonsense. The country deserves better.