NPR essay on losing "America's trust"

You are speaking about general circumstances. Berliner pointed to specific news stories that journalists apparently neglected to pursue because of the politics around the story.

 

I would accept a response that things didn't happen as he stated, but don't misstate his argument as some general claim NPR bends over backwards to play balanced in light of all the shit Trump pulled. He is citing specific instances.

 

I don’t think that, and I’ve never written I did.

 

Heard an NPR story tonight - and this is no BS - on All Things where they opened with audio of a kid watering plants - on a story of having schools create "mentorships" for students frequently in disciplinary situations. Granted, it was the "middle of the hour" and also that it was a pick-up from a local NPR outlet, but PLEASE!!!!!

 

But you ding the mainstream press for treating him as an outlier.

I think he's not only an outlier in conventional political terms, but a singularity in the history of the republic.

I'd further assert the MSM still doesn't know how to cover him.

 

"Sir, that's an outright lie," when interviewing him would be a start.

 

The only thing Trump would hear would hear is the “Sir” and that would make his little shroomie happy.

 

You characterize it as dinging. I think I'm just stating things as they are.

Where you apparently disagree with me is, you still don't think he's treated as a unique threat - even at this moment, the American media isn't meeting your standard of appropriate coverage - and so my statement of fact becomes a criticism.

 

It has nothing to do with my "standard."

And the press absolutely treats him as a unique threat.

But I think the press still has little idea how to actually cover him. 9 years since he rode down that escalator and we're not much closer to knowing what to do with him.

He embodies the 200-level philosophy riddle: "Everything I say is a lie."

 

I'm a regular NPR listener, and it was stories like this that drove me away from All Things Considered. It increasingly feels like they do actual news for about five minutes on the hour and half-hour, then long features like this about people who have not received a fair shake in life. I've half-expected them to start asking for donations for the interviewees along with your pledge.

 

How should the press cover him?

 

I have no idea.

But the time to have figured it out is long since passed.

If the national press in 2015 had treated him the way the average New Yorker did - as a punchline; a pathological liar; a kind of terrible caricature - he'd never have gotten the nomination.

The conventions and pretensions of capital-J journalism prevented us from doing so.

As did the collapse of the old journalism business model.

Now?

Too late.