The feeling here in the newsroom these days is dizzying, like being trapped in a ferociously obnoxious car wash.
But rather than the uncomfortable feeling you get sometimes as you’re strapped into your seat and subjected to fire-hose water blasts, gunky soap and inside-of-a-wall stringy scrubbers, we’re being subjected to Election 2024.
It’s as surreal as the first time in a jungle wash.
Today, a porn actress testified in a New York courtroom about her affair with Donald Trump back in 2006. Prosecutors in the criminal case have been outlining how Trump illegally used his presidential campaign funds as hush money in 2016 to try and squelch the story.
Trump is near being jailed for being unable to refrain himself from threatening and intimidating witnesses and others in the case, a culmination of decades of saying he’s done nothing wrong, and his woes are all the result of “fake news” or “weaponized” justice or just plain unfairness.
And even though this is Trump’s first foray into a criminal court, among dozens and dozens of criminal charges he faces in numerous criminal cases, he insists that he never committed any of the plethora of criminal acts he’s accused of, or that he can’t be held accountable because he used to be the president.
Beyond the press religiously relaying all of the astonishingly racist, alarming, inaccurate, misleading things and lies he’s uttered or posted since he began running for president, the video proof and his own social media accounts are the indisputable record of everything he’s ever produced.
Here’s where the fire-hose of hot water suddenly erupts onto the side window next to your head. Despite all this and much more, he is the near-certain Republican Party nominee for U.S. president.
How is this not a hallucination or a fever dream?
The inarticulate and clearly dozy man — who roused a gang of goons to storm the U.S. Capitol in hopes of preventing the peaceful transfer of power to the guy who provably won the 2020 election — is who holds the hope for a better life for the nation’s Republicans? The party of the rule of law and crime-gets-you punishment?
Here comes a blast of some filmy, slimy goo all over the front of your car.
A poll this week from The American Press Institute, and the Associated Press, revealed that 53% of Americans say “they are extremely or very concerned that news organizations will report inaccuracies or misinformation during the election.”
About half of all Americans say they ”worry that news outlets will use generative artificial intelligence to create stories.”
But wait. There’s more.
A stunning 47% of Americans are deeply concerned that the media will report information that “has not been confirmed or verified.”
And, it gets even worse.
About half of people under 30 get their election information and news from social media, or friends.
“Black and Latino adults are somewhat more likely to express ‘a great deal’ of confidence in the reliability of social media as a source of election news than white Americans are,” the AP reported from the poll results.
It’s pretty easy to see the connection between how Trump has survived politically and how the news industry is not.
Local news sources fare far better than national outlets when it comes to earning trust among readers. But that doesn’t explain how Colorado politicians like Congressperson Lauren Boebert, who is a virtual train wreck of ethics, logic and just plain common sense. The same for Colorado Republican Chairperson Dave Williams, who, after being outed by one of the state’s most trusted journalists from spending state GOP money on his own shifty campaign for Congress, tossed her from a state party event and dubbed her the worst of “fake news.” Even some of the most ardent “party first” Colorado Republicans have dubbed him anathema to Republican Party goals and philosophy — yet he prevails.
This is where the car wash conveyor suddenly halts and you wonder if you’re just going to spend eternity covered in slimy soap.
No doubt that the Sentinel, and all of the media in Colorado, and across the nation, need to do more to help educate the public about how journalism works. We must communicate how news is vetted and inspected by the public every day for accuracy and fairness.
But those who understand how critical American journalism is need to do more to support it. The other half of the nation must take the time to ensure that friends and family understand that they trust it, and believe it.
TikTok influencers are not journalists, and 10 video seconds poking fun at Trump’s orange face or cartoon hair is not journalism.
And if a majority of Americans believe people like Trump over the Denver Post, the Colorado Springs Gazette or the Sentinel, we’re going to be stuck in this nightmare forever.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com
From the article: “Trump is near being jailed for being unable to refrain himself from threatening and intimidating witnesses and others in the case”. This is a clear example of why people distrust media. Trump has never been accused of threatening or intimidating any witnesses yet Perry’s TDS get the better of him yet again. The Sentinel is an egregious example of biased media and few take it seriously. The fact that the Sentinel has to beg for money to survive is a result of its bias.
Looks like Juan is so used to Trumps insults he no longer sees the threats or intimidatiions constantly spewing out of his mouth. What do you think the Judge fining Trump is about? Juan, you can go cry about the world picking on poor, innocent, more intellegenter than any other president ever to be targeted with a socialist driven Witchunt if you want but, I’ll just keep reading real news and try not to pay attention to wyners and complainers trying rewrite the truth.
God forbid you ever try to incorporate factual information into your daily life. If you did you might have to confront reality rather than your myopic, biased media view of life. Enjoy your insulated bubble devoid of reason.
Let me explain something to you: If anyone not named “Trump” had engaged in the kind of public character assassination and intimidation that Trump has on a near-daily basis while being on trial, he or she would be cooling their heels in a jail cell for as long as their case was being tried. I remind you that Trump said “If you come after me, I’m coming after you!”
That is witness intimidation. That is contempt of court. That is the slogan of a mob boss. If you are ever accused of a crime, try making threats like that and see what the court does. You will be taken into custody immediately. You will be found in contempt. You will not be going home.
I believe the reason for the judge’s reprimands. And I believe fact-based journalists’ reporting as opposed to listening to people like Don/Juan.
How I wish that the media would stop spilling so much ink and devoting so much time to Trump. He thrives on and constantly seeks attention, and that is what he’s getting. Yet the electorate needs to know what a sleazy lying ethically-challenged criminal he is.
Where can the balance be? I worry that we’re facing a case of Trump fatigue and the outrage and disgust at this man’s actions will not translate into action at the ballot box in November.
The idea that journalists are still giving us facts is laughable. I used to feel that the media was our protection against all of the abuses of power that can happen. Now, they abet those abuses by printing only whatever their political bent stresses. Both parties are lying to us on a regular basis and the media simply picks a side and reinforces the lies. Objective journalism died awhile ago. Worse, now the media simply cuts and pastes articles. they don’t really investigate. If you read the papers, you will find exactly the same wording in all the different media. That means that any lie in the first article is simply repeated over and over. That was the Nazi way of making a lie believable.