The Right Way to Challenge Fake News

Trump is right challenging fake news. It’s about time someone in high office did it. He’s going about it the wrong way.

Without speech, media and academic freedoms, all other rights are threatened.

Barring certain media outlets from attending Friday’s White House press briefing while letting others in was wrongheaded and counterproductive.

The NYT falsely called the move unprecedented, “something no administration of either party has ever done.”

Not quite. In 2009, the Obama White House said it would no longer conduct interviews with Fox News as a member of the press pool, an unprecedented act at the time.

Other media outlets objected. The White House relented. It remained hostile to Fox News criticism of its policies.

On February 24, NYT editors blasted Trump’s move, absurdly calling it “a backhanded compliment to the reporters whose honest work provoked the president’s latest foot-stamping tantrum” – a gratuitous insult, falsely referring to barred news organizations as “trustworthy.”

Far from it! The Times and other media scoundrels feature fake news, suppressing what’s most important to report.

They’re largely anti-Trump, inventing reasons to bash him. Justifiable criticism is warranted. Biased reporting defiles what journalism is supposed to be.

On Friday, Trump called media “the opposition party…mak(ing) up stories and mak(ing) up sources.”

Candidate Trump said he wasn’t “running against crooked Hillary. I’m running against the crooked media,” he stressed – referring to the media as the “lowest form of humanity.”

Throughout the campaign, they went all out to get him, continuing post-inauguration. The power of scoundrel media manipulated public sentiment works.

Fiction substitutes for important facts. News is sanitized, dissent marginalized. Supporting wealth, power and privilege substitutes for full and accurate reporting.

Wars of aggression are called liberating ones. They’re glorified in the name of peace. Civil liberties are suppressed for our own good. Patriotism means supporting what harms the public welfare.

Might is justified as right. Raping nations is called democracy building. Looting them is considered economic development. Free societies are threatened. Tyranny stalks America.

Truth-telling is a vital disinfectant. The way to challenge media scoundrels isn’t by barring them from press briefings. It’s by exposing their fake news with hard, irrefutable facts.

Trump has bully pulpit power. He has over 25 million Twitter followers plus other ways to counter media lies if done responsibly.

On Friday, he tweeted,

“FAKE NEWS media knowingly doesn’t tell the truth. A great danger to our country. The failing @nytimes has become a joke. Likewise @CNN. Sad!”

Most Americans distrust the media for good reason. Growing numbers rely on alternative sources to stay informed. It’s the only way!