View from the left: Journalists must start covering the elephant in the room-Trump's mental health [View all]

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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/1/28/1626188/-View-from-the-left-Journalists-must-start-covering-the-elephant-in-the-room-Trump-s-mental-health


View from the left: Journalists must start covering the elephant in the room—Trump's mental health
By Kerry Eleveld
Saturday Jan 28, 2017 · 2:00 PM EST



This week was tragic—both for America and the White House. These two tweets from Wednesday and Thursday pretty much sum up Donald Trump's first week in office:

”First they came for the Latinos, Muslims, women, gays, poor people, intellectuals and scientists and then it was Wednesday,” wrote Jonathan Katz.

The next day, Gary Whitta observed, “US/Mexico relations collapse. Entire state department resigns. Press Sec tweets out passwords. It’s 9:34am on the west coast.”

It was messy, chaotic, and full of plenty of misguided bluster. But no matter what came across the interwebs, I couldn't help but note the entire week was being driven by something no news organization really wants to broach: Trump's mental health. It’s the shadowy force that has now hijacked our national agenda.

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Several weeks after the November election, three psychiatry professors urged President Obama to order a neuropsychiatric evaluation of Trump's mental fitness before he assumed the responsibilities of the presidency. It was about as much as they could ethically do—mental health professionals are restricted from diagnosing anyone who's not actually under their care. But you don't have to be a trained therapist to know that Trump could probably binge on mushrooms daily and have a more benign grasp on reality than he does now.

Meanwhile, reporters over at NPR are wrestling themselves to the ground over whether to call a lie a "lie." At the least the New York Times isn't still doing those mental gymnastics.

Look, we need journalists to get over their ethical hangups and deference for the office and start finding the words that meet the moment. NPR listeners weren’t simply upset over semantics. They’re desperate for substantive reporting that goes beyond a basic recitation of the daily bustle. Now is no time for journalists to take a cautious view of their role in our democracy—they weren’t armed with First Amendment protections by the founding fathers so they could hide behind their dictionaries in times of peril.

In years to come, today’s journalists will be judged by one thing and one thing only: How ably they wielded the power of the pen to preserve the foundations of our democracy for generations to come.