When there is a Republican president, the leftist-dominated White House press corps likes to gang up and try to put him on defense.
The ultimate fantasy is repeating the glory days of Watergate by driving the president from office.
That was certainly the aim in Donald Trump’s first term, where the hunt by Democrats with press passes — and the help of a corrupt FBI — was so intense that they produced a near-daily flood of lurid allegations, with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax being the grand climax.
But Trump 2.0 is turning out to be a far different story, though not because the press has decided to be fair in its coverage.
Far from it.
Many editors and reporters are still predicting the end of the world every time he says or does something they don’t like.
Their definition of a scandal is when he deviates from past presidents, as if the Oval Office is a straitjacket.
Take recent front page headlines in The New York Times describing the president’s moves and agenda:
“A Fusillade of Actions That Have Upended American Life”
“Behind The Rush To Discard Rules And Reshape Life”
“Driven by Vengeance, Trump Shreds Rules On His Crusade”
Shrill fear-mongering
It’s hyperbolic fear-mongering, and largely explains why public trust in the media has plummeted since Trump entered politics.
The press hates him more than it loves the truth.
Although the media haven’t changed, the rules of the game they’re playing this time around have changed — because the president and his new team have learned how to fight back much more effectively.
So much so that they are flipping the script in a big way.
Now the media are being forced to play defense in a desperate bid to fight off the president’s effort to upend their monopoly on access to him and the administration.
Given the technology revolution and Trump’s determination, the legacy outlets are fighting a losing battle.
Make no mistake — the monopoly they hold is extremely valuable, both financially and in the power it gives them to set the terms of the national debate.
If, for example, the large legacy outlets — of which there are only about 20 — declare that something the president said or did is outrageous or dangerous, that view will dominate national and even international coverage.
Big TV and radio networks, small town papers and everything from comedy shows to many churches and synagogues will echo the same narrative.
Opposing views will die in darkness.
The big twist of Trump’s second term is that he’s attacking the power of the monopoly by democratizing access.
The media landscape is expanding with new outlets that reach increasing numbers of Americans in different ways, and Trump’s communication team is opening the White House doors to them.
At the same time, the president, as part of his budget cuts, aims to shut off the money spigot to PBS and NPR, government-funded outlets that parrot the Democrats’ agenda.
Because he is making headway on both fronts, the media pushback is instructive — and occasionally hilarious.
The heart of their defense is based on the outrageous claim that they deserve unique access and favored treatment because they are “independent.”
Independent of what?
Because members of the White House press corps all think and act in unison, as if they are members of a guild, they’ve already lost the argument.
Consider that none of them saw any sign of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline — until it jeopardized his chances of beating Trump.
Instantly, they all joined the call for Biden to step aside and anoint Kamala Harris as the Dem nominee.
Independence daze
Still, the vague claim of “independence” is the only argument they have and it’s not a coincidence that both the Times and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting used the word to defend their perks and declare themselves holier than thou.
In a recent article that covered nearly two full pages in the print edition, the Times sneered at White House attempts to broaden access to the president in the Oval Office and briefing room by making space for newcomers, including bloggers and podcasters.
To the Gray Lady, letting in upstarts who don’t subscribe to leftist pieties is an affront to all that is good and decent.
“Longtime White House reporters say the result has been an erosion of their independence,” the Times sneered, without defining what independence it was referring to.
It went on to claim that adding newer media outlets “has undercut the briefing as a space to relay accurate information to the American public and hold the president to account.”
It offers no evidence of those claims, except to show that the newer outlets sometimes get to ask questions of the press secretary that are different from the ones the Times thinks should be asked.
Heaven forbid!
That’s the left in a nutshell: Diversity is a good idea as long as everybody thinks alike!
NPR reacted with the same don’t-you know-who-we-are arrogance.
It said Trump’s executive order defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which in turn funds PBS and NPR, is “an affront to the First Amendment rights of NPR . . . and locally owned and operated the First Amendment rights of station listeners and donors who support independent news and information.”
So let’s get this straight: By saving taxpayers $500 million a year by pulling the funding, Trump is violating the First Amendment rights of both recipients and listeners.
Is there a lawyer in the house?
Free speech gatekeepers
The sense of entitlement perfectly captures the arrogance of the leftist outlets.
They not only want a monopoly, they also demand that taxpayers fund it.
What they really fear is that breaking their stranglehold will lead to the public hearing different perspectives and that will be the end of their cookie jar.
Think about the implications: These are the supposed guardians of the First Amendment, yet they try to squelch the free flow of information because it threatens their sinecures and control of what the public knows about its government.
Bad as it is, the position would be more defensible if the legacy media didn’t distort everything by putting their leftist spin on all news and commentary.
Their lack of fairness and balance is the ultimate reason why they should lose their dominance.
Unfortunately for them, the second Trump White House sees the pattern and is determined to throw open the doors.
Moreover, the administration is wise to the grifters’ false claims of being independent and is now insisting they actually live up to the word.
In his Friday executive order ending funding for PBS and NPR, Trump cited why the outlets should be forced to do without government money.
“Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence,” the president wrote.
Touche!
This story originally appeared on NYPost
