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Reverend James Squire

Trump and the Press



A number of recent books demonstrating the immoral behavior of Trump have been published. They have given an insider’s view of what really was going on during Trump’s last days in the White House. They present a person who is out of touch with reality and who is characterized as “unhinged.” What has become clear is that Trump actually sat for interviews for some of these authors. Why would he do that knowing that he would have to live with the terrible press after those books were released?


Although Trump is without his megaphone on Twitter, it is a rare day that he is not mentioned in all forms of media. It doesn’t make sense, or does it?


I had a graduate of EA, Art Carey, who was a reporter for the Inquirer address the gathered Upper School community. He had written a book called The United States of Incompetence, which was based on a report that he wrote regarding the Bowman Avenue Bridge redo to make it stronger and better. That work took years to be completed. For those who are not familiar with the Mainline, that bridge was a key connecting artery for people. It was more than an inconvenience that it took so long to finish.


Mr. Carey wrote an expose for the paper outlining basically that the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing. The conclusion was that there were too many players in the decision- making process such as the State Roads Commission, SEPTA trains, and a few others.


Carey said something to the assembled that I always remember. When you write a story, you don’t care whether the response is bad or good, you just want a response. He certainly received that from his article so he turned it into a book.


Trump knows this. He once said that it would cost him $40,000 for an advertisement in The New York Times or he could just make a controversial statement and he would get more than $40,000 worth of free publicity.


He also knows that his base will not be swayed in the least regarding anything bad that is reported. It is a win for him. Republicans are still vaccine adverse. Yet he refuses to address them to get vaccinated. He says that he was not properly thanked for getting the vaccine made.


The answer is for the press to stop writing about him, but he sells papers. Think of the news stories about Trump. We already knew what they are addressing for the most part. It has been more of the same. We need to keep an eye on him, but that is why we have the CIA and the FBI.


Ethics is about what we do or what we don’t do. They are referred to as sins of omission and commission. The ethical stance should be to reduce covering him more or attacking him. It just makes his funding better and his base becomes even more loyal.


The news business is the only job in America that I know that you are just as happy to get a bad response or good response, but what counts is that you make some response.


It does remind me a bit of those who cover the weather on news stations. What other group of professionals could get away with using the word, probably.



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