The Media LOVE Trump

You often hear people say stuff like, “The media has it in for Trump, they don’t give him fair treatment, there’s a double standard in the media, liberal bias,” etc etc.

This is, in fact, the opposite of the truth.

The media LOVE Trump.
 
They simply adore him.

This is obvious and can be explained by the old newsroom dicta, “Everybody loves a train-wreck, if it bleeds it leads.”
 
Trump is a train-wreck.
 
Here we are!

Throughout this whole entire fevered sweaty night-terror, my greatest complaint has not been with Trump — Trump is boring and predictable, as boorish gas bags tend to be.

Rather it has been with a craven media entirely beholden to spectacle.

A media that abdicates journalistic responsibility in favor of entertainment value.

A media that has facilitated a time-lapsed erosion of intelligent discourse.

A media that has swapped out reason for bombast.

A media that most values the loudest blabbermouth in the room.

Watch almost any TV appearance with Trump.

You should come away with a feeling of gnawing discontentment.

It is absolutely astounding how much he gets a pass on, and his stale, toxic inanities, which have been tried-and-true talking point staples in pubs and cafes and barber shops since AT LEAST the birth of your Uncle, often elicit polite, mirthful grins from interviewers. 
 
Also not unlike chatty old soothsayers chewing the fat in greasy-spoon cafes, Trump is transparently an accomplished bullshitter.

Media people will ask Trump something like, for instance, “Are you gonna release your tax returns,” (something that every candidate ever has done), Trump will carnival bark and breathlessly spew diarrhea from his mouth for thirty seconds, literally invoking the actual, physical size of the documents (seriously) — not having ever heard of computers or the internet or digital files or the e-filing which the majority of the general public has been doing for like 15 years by now — as being too cumbersome to simply release, then a shrinking, abashed follow-up from our interviewer just before a good-natured smirk and a “Let’s move on.”

OK let’s.

Insert other issue, get same result.

There is, without a doubt, (unconscious) media complicity in fueling the Trump skyrocket.

And don’t kid yourself — Trump knew this all along.

This was his plan. He’s played the media like a five-and-dime ukulele.

He’s been plucking those strings, and oh yes, friends, the media loves a good plucking, so long as it translates to election year windfalls.

He knew all he had to do was (metaphorically) strip naked, light himself on fire, and go streaking through Times Square.

Basically he’s done the political equivalent of just that, and, well, his flaming sentient corpse gives new meaning to The Bonfire of the Vanities.

Plus, if the media really held Trump’s probably abnormally small feet to the fire, he may well take his ball and go home and never look back. And that would be bad for ratings, and, in turn, bad for advertisers. 
 
This is not theoretical physics we’re doing here. 
 
It’s simple math.

Never forget that election years are an enormous business prospect for any corporation, and lest we forget, when we speak of the media we speak of corporations.

But what if it weren’t this way? Can we imagine it another way? Is it possible that it won’t always be this way?
 
Isn’t there a place, a market, a hunger for real, thoughtful conversations about issues and policy and major problems afflicting our country?
 
Sorry for the non-answer answer, but it is this way, one. And two, we can imagine it another way, but that way is in another country so for now we can only daydream and weep ourselves to sleep. Third and finally, no, it is not possible that it will not always be this way. 
 
Fine but where might we turn for a more incisive brand of media, one at least equally interested in doing journalism as it is in presenting entertainment packages?

Are there other people, any people, anywhere, going about this the right way that maybe our own media could look to as an example?
 
Where, oh where indeed. 
 
The BBC. That’s where. 
 
Good luck and god speed, America.