The media is losing the battle, and the war, with Trump

The Trump administration doesn’t like the media, and seem intent on making it hard for reporters to do their jobs.

Yeah, breaking news.

I don’t get the underwear-in-a-bunch response that we media types have in response.

Is it really that big a deal to be able to yell questions at the president at a photo op or when he’s walking to a helicopter on the White House lawn?

And yes, I understand, Sarah Huckabee Sanders stonewalls and outright lies at her press avails. Has any real news ever come out of a White House press avail, is my question on that.

It’s been a while since I’ve been part of a press gaggle in the politics realm, but let me tell you why: they are worthless.

It’s ridiculous to expect a politician or someone repping a pol to give away the store in a press avail: bottom line.

I mean, seriously, I’m going to ask such a brilliantly-worded question that I’m going to trip up a senator or Cabinet official, or president, or spokesman, or whoever, into admitting something momentous?

Um, no.

The real work in journalism is done around the edges. You get a whistleblower to share tidbits of a conversation in secret, that leads you to do some digging.

You talk to some more folks, maybe do a FOIA request, you get access to some emails that show something going on.

Then you get your story.

Shouting questions at a press conference is good for show, but it doesn’t lead to anything substantive.

The bigger issue that I have is how the president is efforting to delegitimize the real reporting that I described above.

Whistleblowers and unnamed sources are the backbone of valuable reporting. Dismissing that kind of reporting as #fakenews is Big Brother 101.

If I’m running CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, what I do is re-assign my reporters from the White House press briefings and pools, and stop sending anybody, including my folks with cameras, from the president’s rallies, and devote those resources to digging.

Basically, call the Trump administration’s bluff, and see how they like being starved of the attention that they crave, and give them more of the attention that they loathe.

Fight fire with fire, in other words.

Why you won’t see them do that: hard work in the trenches isn’t as sexy as the stuff that happens in front of cameras.

To which, shame on them, for shirking their responsibilities as the watchdogs of our republic, in favor of clicks and eyeballs.

Column by Chris Graham