2016: Mainstream press acted badly. Average Americans saw through it.

Now for post or maybe an op-ed somewhere…will proofread tonight.]
I love lawyering. But Writing/Journalism = 1st love. My first heroes were Mencken, Lippman, Bernstein (I even dated Carl’s younger sister for a time), Woodward, R.W. Apple, Halberstam, Hersh. Published my 1st piece for a “large city” paper (cover piece for Cincinnati Enquirer Sunday mag) for $ when I was still in law school. Liked it so much I did it again and again. Still do, even though time is even more limited. I wrote/edited on HS paper, college daily & on law review. Objective journalism in covering politics, national & world news is of course always hard, probably impossible and–in feature and op-ed pieces of course–not even the idea.
But in covering news our greatest newspapers, especially our liberal ones (which most of the world’s great ones have been), owe us a shot at trying to report events, meetings, election news in a fair and impartial way. 2016 will be the year I lost all respect for my beloved Washington Post & New York Times. Will still keep reading them. Upstarts like Fox News? The Washington Times? Other conservative outlets? I’ve not always agreed with them–but they’ve been far more honest than the Post and NYT about who and what they are.
I expect a very diligent stab at objectivity from all reporters of straight news from our mainstream press when fact reporting is the idea and features, analysis & editorial board opinions are not the genre of not on the mix. Let’s start writing news again. I didn’t vote for Donald Trump–but almost wish I had. The pettiness, northeastern elitism, deliberate unfairness and shortsightedness with which the press corps have covered Trump before and after the election four weeks ago is shameful. Especially from our greatest newspapers and broadcast new outlets.
Our experienced senior national political reporters have know for years that Trump and Hillary Clinton are both in fact pragmatic moderate liberals and were and are politically and even personally very much a like. Still, most establishment media chose to spin Trump as a right-wing if not satanic demagogue to news consuming America. That’s simply not true and the news staffs of WaPo, NYT, LA Times, MSNBC know this is not true. Our oldest and most esteem mainstays of the 4th estate lied to and misled consumers. Over and over again.
The point is not that Trump is Good or Bad. (Frankly, I’ve always liked Trump. I do wish he were classier. And I think HRC was a better choice.) The point is that on balance Trump is no better or worse than many overachiever pols America. But the major press went nuts on him–and, pathetically, even the least educated, most-struggling Americans didn’t buy it this time.
In fact, deliberate deception by major media–by media in America and to a lesser extent in English-speaking Western Europe–is the Big Story of 2016.
Could our press take a shot a reporting news fairly when events are the kind which if covered evenhandedly the reading public could draw some of their own conclusions. Most Americans are tired of having establishment media repeatedly telling them how to think and feel. They are beginning to disrespect the profession that many of them once respected and I respected above all professions.
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