The U.S. media are making a deadly mistake with Trump

[turbinetree]

Dartagnan Community
Tuesday February 01, 2022 · 9:14 AM EST

?1642608026

The U.S. media are still flummoxed by the question of how to cover Donald Trump’s actions, even a full year after his ejection from the Oval Office. That ambivalence is understandable; never before in the history of this country has someone so thoroughly brazen and insouciant in his raw criminality occupied a position now enjoyed by Trump, whose every utterance now smacks of outright, seditious intent. Trump is indeed an anomaly they have never dealt with, with his millions of supporters comprising an imposing swath of the American electorate.

There seems to be a consensus among major media outlets that Trump continues to represent a lethal threat to our democracy, but the magnitude of that threat is seen as blunted by the fact that Trump is out of office and therefore unable to inflict immediate harm. So rather than risk telling Americans the truth about what is actually occurring because of this man, they have deliberately ceded that responsibility, rationalizing that “amplifying” Trump’s words will only provide him with more of the attention he obviously craves (many, no doubt, harboring the hope that the country’s institutions will find a way to permanently remove him from the public sphere).

But when a former president—previously impeached for deliberately inciting a mob of violent, white supremacist thugs to ransack the U.S. Capitol—now (in essence) orders his followers to commit further violence should he be investigated or prosecuted for his criminal activities, that is news that the American people need to hear, and hear loudly, whether they want to or not. The real implications of that should be front-page fodder, not something relegated to the Editorial and Op-Ed section where it will mostly be read and digested by those who already have an opinion, or left for days before MSNBC finally takes it up as news “analysis.” It should be a story blared out on the evening news by ABC, NBC, and CBS. It should be the lead story from the AP, Reuters, and other services where local newscasts and newspapers derive much of their content, on NPR and regional news radio.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/2/1/2077675/-The-U-S-media-are-making-a-deadly-mistake-with-Trump?pm_source=story_sidebar&pm_medium=web&pm_campaign=recommended

[wnylib]

1. Don't count on NPR to

give the appropriate attention and depth reporting on Trump's continued threat to democracy and incitement of violence. They are too busy trashing Biden to notice.

[turbinetree]

2. Yepper spot on......