On the EDge: Mr. President, ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders

July 30, 2018 Utah Channel 3

OPINION – A strained relationship between the president and the news media is nothing new.

In fact, we would all knock on suspicion’s door if the two seem to be glad-handing each other all the time. That would mean somebody is lying and somebody isn’t doing their job.

That’s why the current dust-up between the president and the reporters who cover him is no surprise, especially given the history between the two and the parties involved. Neither trusts nor likes the other and they make no bones about it.

Still, there was a certain level of shock and dismay last week when White House chief of staff Bill Shine and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders barred CNN reporter Kaitlin Collins from a Rose Garden press event because earlier in the day she asked the president if he felt betrayed by his former attorney Michael Cohen and then probed his invitation for Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit the White House, questions any reporter worth his or her salt would ask given the opportunity.

It got her 86ed from the afternoon press gathering.

What happened was predictable, as a solidarity protest emerged among reporters – even the president’s favored newsies from Fox News.

Of course, this has been going on for some time.

“Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?” he tweeted on May 9.

During his campaign he took away the credentials of nearly a dozen reporters – including those working for The Washington Post, BuzzFeed and Politico – and banned them from the chartered press plane.

And during the campaign, he told Time magazine that he would allow credentials for news outlets he thought were being unfair to him, but that “It doesn’t mean I’d be nice to them.”

News reporters by their very nature are antagonists.

They do not serve the interests of the president or anybody else they are reporting on, they serve the public interests. That is where their first responsibility lies.

They don’t go soft on their line of questioning or investigation just because the president is a nice guy, is in a tight spot or because they subscribe to his brand of politics.

They don’t ignore an issue simply because it may cause discomfort.

And most importantly, they do not take direction from the president or his staff.

They are the public watchdogs and they have a responsibility that has become a legacy of the Fourth Estate, a term coined by Edmund Burke in 1787 when the press was first allowed to report on Great Britain’s House of Commons.

During his speech, Burke said, “there were three Estates (clergy, nobility and the commoners) … but in the Reporters Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.”

It has evermore been a charge taken seriously by those who pick up the pen to observe and probe on behalf of the people, which is why the relationship between the president and the news media has never been one of comfort.

Not a president during my lifetime has escaped the scalding heat of the press. Some have just handled it better than others.

Barack Obama had run-ins and initiated investigations to squelch leakers within his administration.

George W. Bush had a contentious eight years of scuffling with reporters.

Bill Clinton went so far as to bar a reporter and sparred frequently with the media, particularly during his impeachment when he tried to weasel his way out of a personal and political jam by trying to define “what ‘is’ is.”

George H.W. Bush had his share of problems as well, usually clamming up and refusing to speak.

Ronald Reagan had an acerbic relationship with the press, but used wit and charm to douse the fires.

Jimmy Carter was probably the most press-friendly president of the modern era, holding frequent and regular press briefings and conferences and granting accessibility to just about anybody who knocked on his door.

Gerald Ford was a rather piteous figure.

Then there was Richard Nixon, who was the worst, until now, when it came to media relations. Those of a certain age can remember the enmity between Nixon and the reporters who covered him.

Lyndon Johnson was just plain mean and John Kennedy was a stoic.

“Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didn’t write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn’t any doubt that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press,” Kennedy once told NBC newsman Sander Vanocur. “It is never pleasant to be reading things frequently that are not agreeable news, but I would say it is an invaluable arm of the presidency as a check, really, on what is going on in the administration.”

None, however, has been so brazen as the current president who viciously attacks the press regularly with his charges of fake news and assertions that the media is made up of dishonest people.

It is not, I promise you.

The president is simply an authoritarian who has surrounded himself with yes-men his entire life. The current bunch of aides and counsel are people in positions of power and renown who are afraid to challenge their boss for fear of losing their clout.

But, that’s not how it works with media relations.

The president has failed miserably at the first lesson taught in Media 101: Friendship ends at the byline.

With rare exception, it is a lesson learned well by most members of the media, even the commentators and analysts who are paid to parse the words and define moments of history as they evolve.

And sometimes the results are not favorable.

We are saddled, however, with an authoritarian demagogue who has become expert at stirring the rabble with his populist rhetoric. It has, naturally, spilled over to a general disdain for all things media.

The president, according to most observers, is furious with the media because he believes it does not offer the respect he demands.

The thing about respect is that to gain it you must earn it, something this president has not done because of ego, anger and a narcissism that has spilled over into the day-to-day running of our government.

Other presidents have handled such situations with much more diplomacy and grace.

This one has not.

But instead of his incessant lashing out, he might want to consider the wisdom of an old Jewish Proverb: “I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders.

No bad days!

Ed Kociela is an opinion columnist for St. George News. The opinions stated in this article are his own and may not be representative of St. George News.

Email: edkociela.mx@gmail.com

Twitter: @STGnews, @EdKociela