The flood of White House leaks reveals some alarming goings-on, and comes off as a desperate cry for help. Several Capitol Hill watchers note that leaks from Pennsylvania Avenue are coming out early, fast, and furious, and this is definitely not the norm. Various federal agencies have gone so far as to go rogue on social media by creating Twitter accounts in order to get information out to the public. White House insiders have posted stories of the president's bruised ego, Twitter rages, threats, and complaints of the media's failure to help puff up his own grandiosity.
It sounds like a movie we all know will end badly, except this is real life.
Sources have told the Washington Post that trump feels demoralized by public perception of his presidency in that it does not line up with his sense of accomplishments. Politico published a report about aides who try to control infuriating information from reaching Trump. That has to be a difficult task since it is widely known how much he likes to watch TV.
reuters is choosing to stand their ground when it comes to reporting. Although they recognize the challenges ahead, the agency sees no other choice but to cover Trump's presidency with comparisons to authoritarian regimes such as China, Egypt, and Yemen. Reuters Editor-in-Chief Steve Adler's written message to staff pointed out that it was not every day when a U.S.
president called journalists dishonest human beings. He cited the agency's work in China, Egypt, Iraq, the Philippines, Turkey, Thailand, Russia, Yemen, and Zimbabwe as examples of how to report on the U.S. administration.
War on the media just got deeper
Adler advised using experiences gained by encounters with censorship, visa denials, legal prosecution, and physical threats to journalists.
He recommended getting out there and learning more about how people live, think, what helps or hurts, and how the government's actions effects them, not the reporters. The letters also encouraged the reporters to not be intimidated.
There is something in the wind
These days, news outlets are struggling against actual fake news sites, lies, and attacks, all the while having cameras and microphones trained on the who and what being said.
Yet somehow, people are now being bullied to not speak unless they have praise on their lips or don't trust their lying ears and lying eyes. Is this really how Americans, who claim to love freedom, really want to live?
