The feud between CNN and the White House just shows the rules of the game has changed
Every Sunday morning political talk show had Vice President Mike Pence explaining all aspects of the Trump administration’s policies, except for Jake Tapper’s State of the Union on CNN. For the moment it looks like the Trump administration sees no advantage of sending representatives to be interviewed on any CNN programming, because they don’t need the network.
On Thursday President Donald Trump started doing his weekly address on both Facebook Live as well as YouTube. The man who lives on Twitter embraces social media more than he does what we now call “traditional media.”
In his Wednesday afternoon briefing, White House press secretary Sean Spicer added some “Skype seats” for reporters who are outside of the Washington, D.C., area. Journalists from Rhode Island, Ohio, Oregon and Kentucky appeared on television screens flanking Spicer during his daily briefing, and their questions were interspersed with those asked by reporters in the room.
In a new Edelman Trust Barometer study, only 21% of Trump voters said they trusted the media before the election. After the election, that number had fallen even further, to just 15%. In other words, 85% of Trump supporters now don’t trust the media. By comparison, more than half of Clinton voters said they do.
According to Fortune, these figures help explain the popularity of Trump’s campaign pitch that he was going to shake up the Washington establishment because he was an outsider. And they reinforce the strategic decisions he and his senior adviser Steve Bannon, the former chairman of Breitbart News, made to do an end-run around the traditional media by using social media to get out their message.
For now, voters and people in general feel that the mainstream media are not doing their job. The Trump administration has picked the outlets that they feel are helpful to them. It is up to the media, News Talk Florida included, needs to look at all issues fairly.
Not choosing sides but looking at the issues, one-by-one, and reporting on the facts, calling out people on both sides. We need to watch both Republicans and Democrats closely, keeping everyone honest.
We are living in a new world and everyone in the media must adapt or they will not be around long. We will be doing everything possible to adapt and keep all sides honest. Not because we fear getting into President Trump’s dog house, but because it is the right thing to do.
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