Media continues to bleed credibility with attacks on Trump, While ignoring Obama doing the same

Noah Rothmann:

99

shares

A

As John Podhoretz wrote, these are days of promise and opportunity for America’s political media professionals. So far, they’re squandering their shot. By indulging in ill-considered hysteria and posturing before like-minded colleagues, they sacrifice the credibility they’ll need to expose President Donald Trump’s mendacities. To repair some of the strained bonds between audience and journalist, media professionals must display some restraint when reacting to the latest alleged assault on freedom and decency. That is most easily achieved by recognizing that many of the unprecedented developments of the Trump era aren’t unprecedented at all.

On Tuesday evening, the President of the United States applauded the Fox News Channel “for being number one in inauguration ratings.” In issuing this congratulatory note, he also attacked CNN for being “fake news.” A predictable series of horrified and disappointed reactions from media professionals followed. Notable among them was that of CNN media reporter Dylan Byers: “The President of the United States wants you to watch one news organization and not another…” While Trump’s behavior hardly befits an American president, he is also crudely mirroring the Obama administration, which spent its first year in office seeking to discredit Fox News as a respectable media outlet.
...

This isn’t the only recent development that has sent reporters into paroxysms of trepidation over this sacrifice of presidential dignity. Indicative of this administration’s obsessive fixation with its media coverage, the White House press office released on Wednesday a press release summing up the positive coverage it has received.

“Don’t recall ever seeing a WH do this,” remarked Huffington Post White House reporter Christina Wilkie. “Some might call it Propaganda,” NBC News’ Katy Tur averred. “I didn’t totally expect the 1984-esque dystopian future to be so soon, but life comes at ya fast,” snarked the Center for American Progress’s economist Katie Bahn. But this, too, is not an unparalleled abuse of the public trust; at least, not for those who remember how the Obama administration sold the public on the Iran nuclear accords in 2015.

The Obama administration’s “blog” content (now maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration), which includes former Press Secretary Josh Earnest’s “Regional Roundup: What America’s Newspapers are Saying About the Iran Deal.” The blog consisted entirely of favorable headlines from around the country reciting verbatim (and false) administration claims about the nuclear accord. “The Iran Deal” even had its own Twitter account which disseminated not only favorable press mentions but also crafted insipid pop culture memes to get the millennial generation jazzed about nuclear non-proliferation. Imagine the anxiety among journalists when the Trump White House mirrors this tactic.
...

There is more including more detail on the Obama administration's attacks on Fox.  Bill Clinton also was not above taking on Rush Limbaugh who disagreed with his policies.

So is this a short term memory problem or just a complete lack of self-awareness?

What Trump and his supporters are reacting to, as a near hysteria by many in the mainstream media in response to his executive orders.  These orders are not outside the norms for Presidents going back decades.  They deliberate mischaracterize his temporary ban on people of all faiths from about seven countries.  It is not a ban on Muslims and it is not a halt to immigration beyond the specific limits of the order.

While some in those countries don't like the ban, there has been little to no reaction from most Muslim countries many of which also ban travel from some of the same countries, but you do not get that perspective from most of the media.  They are completely failing in their ethical responsibility to put facts in perspective and not just act like Democrat partisans.