Trump and the media: President and reporters have gotten off to bad start

President Donald Trump's administration has gotten off to a rocky start with the media.

The situation comes as no surprise. It is a continuation of his "running war" with the media on the campaign trail, where he made hay out of portraying reporters as biased and hopelessly left wing, even plain out liars.

Most Trump supporters see reporters and editorial writers as the enemy. That is sad. The media has an important role to play in the affairs of the government and the people. Its job is to hold those people in a position of power accountable. That was part of the thinking of the framers of the Constitution, who considered freedom of the press imperative. They remembered well the constraints of living under a monarchy, where there was no freedom of speech.

That's not to say that there aren't some news outlets that are biased. There are. But it doesn't help matters when the president's spokesman makes obvious false claims in public, such as the one over the weekend about the size of the inaugural crowd. The people deserve to know the truth, not "alternative facts." If the president's spokesman cannot be trusted to tell the truth over such a trifling matter, how can he or she be trusted to tell the truth on more important issues?

Americans deserve to know what is going on with their government, and the media, no matter what you think of it, is the best way for that information to get out.

Published in Editorials on January 24, 2017 10:00 AM