TRUMP’S MEDIA STRATEGY: IT’S THE ONLY THING WORKING

… The controversial White House senior advisor, Steve Bannon

 

The main-stream media doesn’t like getting bombarded in Trump’s “war on the media.”

 

Well, well, well, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, has been officially made a Deputy Assistant to the President and principal deputy press secretary under Sean Spicer.

 

On her maiden voyage at the podium for the White House press briefing, someone asked a question where they started with a reference to an article by the news organization, Politico.  Before Ms. Sanders would answer the reporter’s question, she made the novice mistake of saying, “I would be careful in using any information coming from Politico.”

 

First, for anyone working for the less-than-honest Trump administration, having the gall to make a negative comment about questionable info from a 1^st class operation like Politico, that really takes some major Cojones.   As it was, considering the issue in question, it was later offered up by other, multiple legitimate sources showing that what Politico had offered initially as an exclusive, it was in fact, the correct information.

 

Later the same day, on a political program on Sirus XM satellite radio’s POTUS channel, the host, Julie Mason, herself a former White House reporter, she had a reporter on her show that is a current White House reporter.  Yes, a reporter that has to sit through the boring, daily up-dates usually offered from the less-than-exciting Press Secretary, Mr. Sean Spicer.

 

What this long time political reporter had to say was that both the George W. Bush administration and the Obama administration were very good at offering solid, correct information at their briefings and they were both adamant at keeping the “info leaking” at a minimum.

 

Apparently the former Clinton administration was also good at providing honest information, but they were terrible with the “Info leaking” issue.

 

Today, multiple White House reporters that are regular guests on the POTUS radio programs have said that “Most of the info from the Trump Press Office and the Press Briefings is not correct info and it has to constantly be Fact Checked.  They also said they have never seen such an issue of “info leaking” like what goes on in today’s Trump administration.”

 

I have noticed that on CNN, MSNBC and CNBC, the reporters and hosts are continually having to make corrections to info they have received from the current White House.

 

All of this seems to be coming from the battle between President Donald Trump, his representatives, and the mainstream media.  This has been heating up for quite some time, ever since Trump first called CNN “fake news” during a press conference a week before his inauguration.  He then refused to take a question from that same cable network.

 

This was an unprecedented slap in the overall media’s face, and as might be expected, the press didn’t like getting so heavily bombarded in this “war on the media.”

 

It also seemed to make the controversial White House senior advisor, Steve Bannon’s words to the New York Times, make Trump’s “fake news” salvo at CNN seem relatively tame.

 

What Bannon said just shows how the White House really feels about the media.  He said, “The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while.  I want you to quote this: The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”

 

So, how did the media respond to Bannon's statement?  Well, it tried to fight back.

 

CNN’s Jake Tapper met Bannon’s face-slap head on, simply saying “No, I won’t shut up”. And the avowed Trump hater, Keith Olbermann just couldn’t help himself either when he Tweeted Bannon:  “Ask Nixon how a war against the media turns out, Bannon.”

 

But according to Fortune's senior writer Mathew Ingram, that in fact may be just the way the Trump White House wants it.

 

Ingram’s piece for Fortune last was titled: “Trump’s Media Strategy Is a Trap, and We’re All Taking the Bait”.  The article argues that Trump and Bannon and the rest of the White House inner circle know exactly what they’re doing as they continue to anger the press. Ingram called it a “winning strategy” that helped put Trump in the Oval Office.

 

Noting a story that appeared in the Times which called Bannon’s ploy all: “theater,” Ingram pointed out that “the mainstream press, liberal, bi-coastal, latte-drinking know-it-alls, in the eyes of its critics, have been the Trump’s campaign punching bag from the beginning.”

 

Now with the press getting insulted, threatened and more or less marginalized by the newly minted Trump White House, Ingram argued that Bannon “knew that the instinctive response from journalists would be to cry foul, and to mount our horses in defense of free speech. It’s like poking a bear in a cage.”

 

And Bannon also undoubtedly knows that much of this response, such as the injured pride and the lashing out on Twitter, this would make the media look even worse in the eyes of Trump’s base supporters. How dare Bannon attack the media, we, the gatekeepers of knowledge and defenders of democracy? Translation: “We the media are what is important here.”

 

The reality is that the wisest response for embattled journalists is for the media to “just do its job”.  That is, to report the facts.  No chest-puffing, no shouting matches, no tweet storms. Just take the lumps and get on with the task at hand.

 

Some cases may involve some news outlets to call a Trump statement a lie. But this has to be a very sober decision taken with care, not a schoolyard taunt of “Liar! Liar!” Because if it’s the latter, many will see it as simply an attack, and not bother to determine who is right and who is wrong.  That also just feeds into Bannon’s demonization strategy towards all main-stream media.

 

The point is, that based on the election results, many in the mainstream press did get the election wrong by misunderstanding the base of Trump’s support.

 

Let’s face the fact though, that the Trump White House is engineering the media’s collective anger toward it in order to further alienate it from Trump’s supporters.  The American public in general is already somewhat distrustful of the press, and the White House’s tactic is totally intentional and in some ways, it could be brilliant.

 

Bannon and Trump have come to the determination that many in middle America or what they call their “Silent Majority and the Forgotten Men & Women”, have decided that they are being lied to by the main-stream press.

 

Trump, Bannon and even Ms. Kellyanne Conway recognize this and they continually act appropriately on it. 

 

In an educated democracy, one should presume that the more informed and mature the public is, they ought to be able to sort facts for itself.

But with a leading administration such as those in the Trump organization, they will just continue to claim that the main-stream media is “fake news” and their supporters have shown they prefer to believe the Trump Team over the nation’s main media outlets.  At least all those other than Fox News.  Trump and company continue to refer to the media as the “most dishonest people around”, and of course Trump's supporters believe whatever Trump says.

 

You can expect this to be their approach as Trump continues to lie to the public even when he is called out on it.  Then his people just make excuses for him, or they actually support his lies.

 

For as long a Trump is in office, you can expect that this is how he will be running his operation.

 

The best we can hope for is that he will tell too many lies and finally get caught, or he will make enough mistakes that the public just can’t take it anymore.  Or hopefully he will be driven out of office by his illegal business activities that goes against his constitutional responsibilities.

 

But one must ask, if that should occur, would a President Mike Pence be any better?

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016