The Ignorant Journalist

Generally, forty years ago.....what the AP, Time, Newsweek, New York Times, US News and World Report, Washington Post, NBC, CBS, and ABC said.....mattered.

Folks sat around, and talked about this article or that news piece, in a factual way.  They sat on front porches and discussed what the US News and World Report said this week, and it MATTERED.  Watergate was Watergate, because the Washington Post made it topic number one for almost an entire year.

Then you watch this transformation occur in the 1990s and over the past two decades.  Drudge, NPR, social media, 'evil' Russians, CNN, Fox News, and forty-odd dozen micro-news organizations (like the micro-brewery business in a way) stepped onto the stage.  Being a journalist changed....you didn't need to really be factual.....you needed to just convince people of something....whether true, false, or something 'else'.

It reached some point in the past year where the news groups started to drag back onto the stage,  the collosal 'kings' of journalism of the 1970s, who most people today don't recognize or even care about (sorry for that slam).

Journalist connecting with people?  No.  Most haven't talked to regular people in a decade.  They've heard that these people exist, but the idea of talking to them and finding common grounds?  No.

So this odd thing occurred.  We just dissolved the relationship.  It's like having IP service and dumping our carrier.  Or having a cable package, and dumping them for bad reliability.  Or having some kid mow our grass and be fed up with his attitude.

Upon watching this CNN exchange with Allison Camerota and John Sununu....it was obvious that Sununu was not going to give respect to Camerota.....kinda like saying just because she thought she had a talking dog or a magic unicorn.....didn't mean it was so.  She repeated that demanded respect, and it was an obvious moment that he didn't believe in giving them any respect.

For well over two years, the news media has blasted onto Trump and he's treated them like juvenile delinquents....pushing them around and labeling them 'losers'.  The public thinks of it as some circus entertainment situation.  Trump is the guy in the center-stage, and the news media acts as clowns.

I don't think this will be corrected anytime soon, and might go on for a full decade.