This New Yorker piece describes the reality of Trump press conferences–a nonstop stream of lies, bullshit, more lies, self-promotion, self-congratulation, more lies, and attacks on anyone–journalists and others–who disagrees with them, living or dead. The press room has become a “small theatre for an increasingly sick show.”
The media’s greatest sin–and there have been many–has been continuing to play along with this show, to make themselves complicit in it. They continue to go to the threatre; they continue to present the bullshit without pushing back; they continue to ask generally bad questions and accept non-answers; and they continue to abide personal attacks on them and on their colleagues. They have become outlets for administration propaganda, whether willingly or otherwise.
Why? Why not stop attending the theatre and, perhaps, end the show’s run? What the President and Vice President do constitutes news. When the President (or his aide) stand in a room of bullshit, it is not news. Can we at least ponder what might happen if reporters stop showing up and giving Trump, Leavitt, Vance, etc., oxygen for their lies?