Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Pressing Issues

   For all the talk about the press being "the enemy of the people," only three news outlets are regularly attacked by the president: CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
   Fox, on the other hand, is regularly praised, but all of that praise goes to commentators who are avid supporters of the president, and not to the few news anchors who are what can only be called journalists, neutral in their presentations.
   Never mentioned are the three major TV networks -- ABC, CBS and NBC -- as well as other major newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times, the Atlanta Constitution, the Miami Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News and the Philadelphia Inquirer, plus the independent news services like the Associated Press and others that have their own staff of reporters covering politics and government. These latter provide neutral coverage because they serve a wide variety of geopolitical areas.
   Also never mentioned is the BBC, which provides news coverage to the world. Neither is the CBC mentioned, even though it serves all of Canada and many of America's northernmost states. And don't forget the cable news operations sponsored by friendly nations such as France and Germany, whose news programs are readily available to Americans.
   But according to the president and his supporters, all news operations lie, as if they all get together to plan and coordinate their news operations before broadcast.
   As if they had time for that in a 24-hour news cycle.
   Also not mentioned is the fact that the BBC has a long history of being neutral in its news coverage, even critical of the British government.
   But according to the Trumpistas, the only true facts (as opposed to false facts) come from the president himself. All the others dispense "fake news" as part of a "witch hunt" and a "hoax."
   As if the only reliable source of information is the president himself, who is always  right about everything in every detail all the time.
   Or so he claims.

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