There is one problem with that – Trump entirely bypassed the press to become president. That is truly shocking. For a man who masterfully used the press for decades, that is a warning signal everyone should consider. Once upon a time, if you didn’t get press, you weren’t part of the game. If you got bad press, your life was destroyed. These days, it is irrelevant. All you need is Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook, and you are set for a generation.
And the media shut out itself has propagandistic advantages: the WH can say the press is being biased, and is being afraid – and they can disseminate their message to billions without a single media outlet giving him the time of day. Right now, the press is in a bind in that no matter what they do, they have no power or control. The press has no broad audience anymore – just boutique partisan ones on the left or right. They have covered canned events as real news for decades, and have reported lies as facts for just as long.
I think a good first step would be to stop reporting on pseudo-celebrities cold turkey because that is precisely how they got into trouble in the first place. They made a deal with the devil in the 1980s, and the devil collected last November. Put a ban on the trivial and refocus their mandate because as it stands, it is a waiting game and they will burn out with what they are doing in a very short period of time.
