With polls stubbornly showing him likely to win the Republican presidential nomination, journalists from three leading publications are openly calling for the media to stop Donald Trump from being elected president.
Trump in Alabama (CNN)
Ruth Marcus, writing a column at the Washington Post published Tuesday night entitled Why Teflon Trump is so hard to attack, complains that Trump is not dancing to the media’s tune and something must be done about it:
“The emperor has no clothes. The Donald has no policy.
“This is not exactly news, but it is too often forgotten in the substance-free carnival that is the 2016 presidential race. Donald Trump’s bright-shiny-object campaign style serves to obscure the substance void, leaving reporters endlessly chasing after his latest rhetorical bomb rather than pressing him on policy.”
…”Not, of course, that such questioning produces answers. Trump evades questions about how he would approach a particular problem with airy assurances about management and dealmaking. There’s only so much follow-up that can be done in the face of this bombast.”
Marcus then posts a lenghty recap of a recent Trump campaign speech in South Carolina, concluding with this complaint:
“Readers, this is no caricature — it’s Trump unfiltered, alighting briefly on a topic, complicated or trivial, before flitting to the next. And it’s not as if Trump bolsters his stump speech with policy depth in proposals or interviews. If Obamacare is a disaster, what’s Trump’s replacement? If Common Core is dead, what’s his alternative?”
Marcus, who opened her column complaining Trump “has no policy”, then bemoans Trump’s tax cut policy.
Marcus closes with a plea to her fellows in the media to stop Trump:
“Trump relies on his ability to dominate the news with provocative distractions, to repel serious questions until interviewers’ time runs out. We in the media must find a way, if not to pierce the bluster, at least to expose it.”
Ron Fournier, a former Associated Press White House reporter now ensconced as a liberal columnist at the National Journal, tweeted Marcus’ column Wednesday morning with this message of agreement:
Again: Media must stop debating whether Trump can win and start exposing why he shouldn't https://t.co/siJcnFNSxJ @RuthMarcus @Morning_Joe
— Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) January 6, 2016
“Again: Media must stop debating whether Trump can win and start exposing why he shouldn’t”
Salena Zito, a conservative reporter-columnist with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review chimed in with her agreement with Marcus and Fournier that the media needs to stop Trump:
https://twitter.com/SalenaZitoTrib/status/684729613726167041
“You guys I keep saying this–>”
At least the media is conspiring out in the open this time instead of using ‘JournoList‘.
As far as we know, anyway.
