Scapegoating journalists won't save America

Journalism isn't a science. It's a craft. Accordingly, some is good, some not so much, and sometimes, the pros get it wrong.

But one thing that has put our country's future at risk more than anything else is the right's demonizing of the profession and threats to silence journalists.

How did you learn about DJT's plethora of failings? It was journalists who uncovered and reported them. It wasn't bloggers or so-called influencers or the multitude of talking heads who proliferated across the political spectrum. It was journalists.

The newly anointed POTUS-elect despised journalists for doing this and as far back as the beginning of his first campaign, he began accusing journalists and their outlets of reporting things that were lies, which of course, they were not.

This, of course, was picked up by his minions, who in turn began denigrating any report that put their hero in any sort of unfavorable light. No amount of evidence could convince them otherwise.

Accusations by the left that news outlets "sanewashed" DJTs proclamations and behavior are not completely unfounded, but it was the journalists' editors who tended to soften the wording, not to mention writing headlines that were often deceptive, to the consternation of the reporters who did the actual legwork and were just trying to pass on what they'd learned.

People who have acquired so many of these outlets have zero respect or passion for journalism. I believe the editors who caused the damage to these outlets' reputations were under tremendous pressure - sometimes including the threat of losing their jobs - to serve the profiteers who now own so many news outlets and were concerned about alienating such a large number of people.

Witness what happened with the last-minute decisions by the L.A. Times and Washington Post to decline to endorse at the last minute. In both cases, this was dictated by their bazillionaire owners, who since Election Day have been toadying up to the POTUS-elect.

Now, DJT is threatening to target and persecute any journalist or news outlet that has reported, or going forward reports, anything unfavorable about him, his cronies, or his agenda.

Think about that!

If journalists, or more likely, the outlets they work for, become intimidated or silenced, how will you ever learn anything but what DJT's administration wants you to hear?