President Trump's attempts to be elusive -- while revealing -- are at the same time, very confusing to the media which can usually rely on a President to put one foot in front of the other. Unfortunately, for this president, his steps and missteps are more chaotic and sometimes they land off to the side or back behind him to the point where no one is quite sure what to think of it, much less in which direction he's headed. What is true is that Trump prefers it this way.
This shows that President Trump has been very successful in doing one thing, which is to confuse the narrative in which he can hide behind.
As a result, it seems that in some of the discussions pundits and journalists have been having, they're not sure what to think or where to lay their predictions.
Journalism gets exhausted in Trump's orbit
One article by Blasting News points to how vigilant journalism has become in the Trump era where watchful eyes are able to report on what he does in real-time in defiance of his denial to the press that he's not going to tell them what he's planning to do in his approach to foreign policy. However, there is a sort of fatigue that sets in which continues to exhaust those "watchful eyes" only making the reporting harder to the point where journalists are likely to throw their arms into the air with frustration.
With other events that aren't pulled into President Trump's orbit, there is more clarity as for what to expect and so the differences between what goes on in that orbit and outside of it become quite clear.
This certainly proves that those in Trump's orbit -- or bubble -- have a very real fight on their hands and must continue to be vigilant and even more so if they want to come out of that bubble unscathed.
In another Blasting News article about Trump using his lies as leverage, it makes quite clear how confusing the President's "spin" is about many events such as when he and high-ranking military commanders said they had sent a naval strike group to the East China Sea, which not only turned out to not be true but left everyone around the world in the dark, even U.S.
allies.
Scathing attacks on media
Many who have been critical of the media -- even within Trump's circle such as Press Secretary Sean Spicer -- have said that journalism doesn't exist anymore. These are perceptions that are meant to target the White House's critics, to lend support for those who already dismiss the media and to discredit the entire press and force them to believe that they're not working hard enough. Their narrative has been that the news media is resorting to making up news stories, especially if they're revealing and negative. A journalist with a weak constitution who simply isn't vigilant enough to take incoming fire could buckle under that kind of pressure and with the exhaustion of being in Trump's orbit, it can wear on the journalist and even their readers.
So, this points to how important it is for the media to remain vigilant as the Trump era continues to develop. Before it gets out of hand, President Trump and his aides should be forced to live in the media's orbit until they submit under pressure and into exhaustion. And that's going to require journalists to work much harder for journalism (not from the White House's perspective) than they've ever worked before.