The constantly evolving media narrative about Trump could be seen as actual malice

Roger Kimball:
The Narrative is partly like quicksand. If you fall into it, struggling will hasten your envelopment and death. Best to relax, take some deep breaths, and half float, half swim out of danger.

I know there are some people whispering that advice into Donald Trump’s ear. Don’t struggle! Stay calm. And above all, do not tweet.

There is something to that.

The problem is, the Narrative is not only like quicksand. It is also like the hydra that Hercules encountered in his labors for Eurystheus: a multi-headed, self-regenerating, venomous beast. CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, Vox, Salon, The Huffington Post, The Daily News, the whole fetid midden of festering mendacity. Lop off a head by refuting a particular lie and another lie blossoms forth in toxic profusion. The only way to deal with the beast is to follow refutation immediately with cauterization. The question is, how to do this?

There is no single answer. In the case of really egregious, around-the-bend malefactors like CNN, the Gawker Media Expedient might be the best solution. You remember Gawker. That was the disgusting purveyor of malicious gossip that finally got sued out of existence. Whenever it is challenged, CNN, like Gawker, wraps itself in its “public’s-right-to-know” flag: news, a free press, honest journalism, etc. It would be funny were it not so transparently cynical and self serving....
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Whores like CNN run to the famous 1964 case The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan when attacked: if you’re a public figure, I can say anything I want about you. Go suck eggs.

Well, not quite. That decision (mistaken in my view) does have a threshold beyond which one may not legally trespass: “actual malice.” It’s difficult to prove, to be sure, but I’d like to see an enterprising attorney step up to the plate and try. He might start with the current production of Julius Caesar, funded by CNN’s parent company Time Warner, which portrays Caesar as Trump and delights in the sanguinary spectacle (“brutally realistic”) of his murder on stage. Evidence of “actual malice”? Someone should ask John Nolte, who wrote about the rodeo clown whom CNN got fired for wearing an Obama mask in one of his performances.
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There is much more.

I have long since quit watching CNN.  It seems like a place where people stew in their juices of hatred on a daily basis.  There seems to be a lack of professionalism as the "talent" no longer can hide its animus toward the President.  It no longer is content to just present the news and allow explanations of events on the air.  The hate is too strong for that.

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