RE: Michael Flynn, national security adviser, resigns over Russia contacts
February 15, 2017 at 5:01 pm
(February 15, 2017 at 1:17 pm)alpha male Wrote:(February 14, 2017 at 3:09 pm)Tiberius Wrote: True enough, though I've been observing American politics for years. It seems to me that we're not even 1 month into Trump's term and he's already caused no end of controversy and scandal. If that keeps up for 2 years, it's going to have to be one hell of a narrative spun to avoid mid-term losses.
It seems that way because the MSM hates Trump and criticizes everything about him. But consider:
- the public's faith in MSM is very low
- they're desensitizing us to it. Every day I open my Google News, and there's a dozen things Trump is doing wrong. I've quit clicking on them. Trump's going to get away with actual, serious wrongdoing because it will just blend in with all the inconsequential crap.
Blaming the MSM for this is a weak argument, IMO. This isn't just another thing people can blame on the "liberal news", for multiple reasons. Trump has inarguably had the most controversial first few weeks of any presidency, due in part to the fact that he's inexperienced as a politician (not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but his inexperience shows), his administration has been caught lying multiple times already, and the fact that he was elected as a populist candidate claiming to "take on" various institutions and as soon as he was sworn in he hired many of their executives as either advisors or to his cabinet.
Desensitization is a real problem, but so is underreporting. Media have to find a balance. Again, sometimes it's not their fault though. Take for instance the whole inauguration crowd size debacle. It could have gone down as a gaffe if the Trump administration had just not commented on it or had even just come out originally and said that Trump was talking about people watching online, etc. Instead, they made it a massive issue by saying that photos of the inauguration were wrong, and continuing to lie about it to the press. Trump even lied about the weather. So what was such a small issue originally was blown up by the Trump administration themselves, and it would have been reckless of the media not to report on that, IMO.
