The press responded to Trump banning CNN’s Jim Acosta from the White House by ignoring his attention seeking device while fact-checking the White House.

The New York Times reported on how CNN reacted to Trump‘s efforts to provoke a war with the press:

The temptation to play it big was strong. Here was a CNN star in the middle of the action, and television news is nothing if not self-promotional. But at the regular morning meeting on Thursday, Mr. Zucker told his producers to stand down. This time, CNN would not be led by the nose into giving significant airtime to another Trump attack on the news media, especially when Democrats were preparing to take over the House and Jeff Sessions was being forced out of the attorney general’s office.

….

Other news organizations appeared to follow Mr. Zucker’s lead, resisting the urge, for once, to allow the president to turn them into hapless characters in his never-ending national melodrama.

Report On Trump, But Ignore The Drama

Drama and conflict are oxygen for the Trump presidency. The president has no interest in governing, and until Democrats take over the House, there will be no one in Congress focused on policy. The Trump administration is one endless dramatic conflict with the drama queen in the Oval Office always needing to be the center of attention.

Those who say that the press should ignore Trump are wrong. Ignoring Trump would play into the hands of the most corrupt administration in decades. The press has a valuable role to serve as a check on power. The press doesn’t need to be caught up in Trump‘s made up conflicts.

Trump’s Attacks On The Press Are A Political Strategy

When the national focus is on Donald Trump, he and Republicans lose. Trump needs to be at political war at all needs. He needs someone or something to shift attention and blame toward. Trump has been trying to make the press his enemy he won the election. The president is trying to intimidate the press into compliance, and use a war with journalists to play on the right-wing mythology of liberal bias.

The press isn’t buying it. Trump will be covered and reported on, but no one is going to be slumming it in the Trump tabloid sewer.
Trump is being covered like a president, not a reality TV star, and the press is going to ignore his efforts to provoke fights and create drama.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

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Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association

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