In a vast churning sea of outrage at the Trump administration, a sea that, as Dilbert artist and blogger Scott Adams notes, is diluting individual outrages to where they are lost in the maelstrom, it takes some serious effort for one to stand apart. Steve Bannon, former Breitbart editor and current Trump strategist, figured out how: Go directly at the disseminators of information.

Bannon recently scolded the press, saying:

The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while.

BOOM! Self-important “journalists” of the Left suffered a collective head-explosion, and headlines appeared in all the usual places deriding Bannon and decrying his statement.

Or, more specifically, decrying a truncated and Dowdified portion of his statement. The New York Times, CNN, New York Magazine, CBS News, Talking Points Memo, CNBC, Slate, USA Today, Mediaite, The Hill, and many other news sites headlined their stories with some version of ‘Bannon Tells The Media to “Keep Its Mouth Shut.”‘ The body of many of the stories offer the full quote, but none of them include the second half of his statement “just listen for a while.”

This, of course, gives us the preferred image of Bannon as a combative asshat, one that’s not unfair (especially given his declaration of the media as “the opposition”), but it mischaracterizes the meaning of the sentence.

It’s pretty fair to conclude that the press has been doing a lot of chattering at the President, with its endless stories of what he should do, what he should not do, why what he’s doing is wrong, and what they want him to believe those who are protesting are protesting about. The press is also fixating on, lets call them Trump’s “unforced errors,” including his obsession over the reporting of the crowd size at the inauguration and his… “brusque” manner with one of the CNN reporters.

Lost in all this chatter is journalistic coverage of what he’s done in his first few days. While each executive order has been reported on, it seems the press is more interested in continuing in its self-appointed as scold-in-chief than in devoting its news pages to the actions that will have effects long after the various incidents born out of Trump’s ego and thin skin have faded into irrelevance. Rather than provide us deep coverage on Trump’s whirlwind of activity, they focus on telling him and his people how they want them to behave.

This isn’t how the press is supposed to operate. The Fourth Estate’s role is supposed to be one of sunshine-disinfectant, telling us the goings on, exposing shenanigans and thus helping keep politicians more accountable to the voters. To do that, they first need to listen and to watch – to witness what politicians, activists, community leaders, business leaders, and other newsworthy folks are saying and doing. Of late, the press are far more interested in telling everyone how things should work and be. Such is traditionally and properly located on editorial pages and offered by columnists, but it has spilled over into the news realm and is drowning out proper news coverage.

This behavior hasn’t gone unnoticed, and is one of many factors that contributed to Trump’s victory. People aren’t so stupid not to realize that the press is trying to tell them what to think and trying to tell the people they elected what to think, what to do and how to behave. They see that many in the press have gotten “too big for their britches,” as evinced by the increasing distrust of the media.

Dowdifying Bannon’s statement is just another straw added to the camel’s back. Yes, Bannon was and is combative, and may indeed be an asshat, but his advice in this case was actually good. If the press wants to properly do its job i.e. report to us what the President and his administration are thinking and doing, perhaps they should listen a bit more and chatter a bit less. It’s not good for the press to lose its credibility with the people. A free nation needs a vigilant, observant and honest press to keep those in power in check. And, with an untethered orange id at the top of the heap, one who’s moving fast and in unpredictable ways, we need a clean and honest conduit of information. What we don’t need is a bunch of self-important Fourth Estaters barking their self-importance at him.

• About the Author

About Peter Venetoklis

I am twice-retired, a former rocket engineer and a former small business owner. At the very least, it makes for interesting party conversation. I'm also a life-long libertarian, I engage in an expanse of entertainments, and I squabble for sport.

Nowadays, I spend a good bit of my time arguing politics and editing this website.

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