The press corps is Trump's assisted living program

https://www.editorialboard.com/the-press-corps-is-trumps-assisted-living-program/


A long time ago, I was an English composition instructor at Georgia Southern University. My job was to teach first-year students how to write college-level essays and how to communicate effectively. With rare exception, all my students brought with them a habit borne of childhood. To achieve success in my class, they had to break it.

What habit? The habit of depending on a grown-up to do the work of communicating what they’re trying to say. To be sure, we all do this in casual conversation. However, you can’t do that in public writing or in public speaking. In a formal setting, you are 100 percent responsible for what you are trying to say, and if I don’t understand it, that’s on you.

I would say most of my students understood this. Others, however, were not prepared. They were not even willing to accept as theirs the responsibility of communicating. Some would even grow visibly upset at realizing I would not do the work for them. It was, after all, a shock. I was sometimes the first adult to hold them accountable not only for what they said, but for what they didn’t say. If they wanted to reach the highest standard, they had to take responsibility for themselves.

I hadn’t thought about that experience in 20 years, but it came back to me suddenly as I was reading Parker Malloy’s latest piece in The New Republic. Her argument is familiar to those of us who have been critical of the Washington press corps’ coverage of Donald Trump, especially its practice of making his habitual incoherence seem coherent. Most important is Parker’s introduction to a wider audience of Aaron Rupar’s term to describe that practice. It’s “sane-washing.” Here’s Parker:

This “sanewashing” of Trump’s statements isn’t just poor journalism; it’s a form of misinformation that poses a threat to democracy. By continually reframing Trump’s incoherent and often dangerous rhetoric as conventional political discourse, major news outlets are failing in their duty to inform the public and are instead providing cover for increasingly erratic behavior from a former — and potentially future — president.

*snip*