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Trump lays historic groundwork; media blocks the impact

In the past nine days, President Trump took an historic flight from Saudi Arabia to Israel and laid solid groundwork for alliances among people who have been divided for centuries.

He showed strength, leadership, vision and determination while attempting a bold alliance of moderate Muslims against radical terrorists who pose a worldwide threat. He sought to kickstart a new peace between Israel, the greatest ally of the United States, and those who have not honored its right to freedom and territory.

The president was cheered and respected at every stop, including Italy, where he completed an historic religious trifecta in a unifying visit with the pope.

The world’s yearning for American strength and leadership was obvious.

Meanwhile, at home, the other storyline threatened to crowd out the world’s hope for new American leadership. The mainstream media made sure to feed the rumor windmill. Everything from what might have been said to Russia or to the FBI or in a memo from former FBI Director James Comey was on the daily menu.

Meanwhile, much of that media did not cover Trump’s major speeches.

We know this president from the private world of business shows his non-Washington colors daily, making inappropriate verbal mistakes. He is often his own worst enemy. We have an independent counsel that is supposed to objectively establish what level these mistakes rise to – self-destruction, inappropriate persuasion or unlawful action.

But when the president is on a fairly historic world mission for peace and the media exhausts itself daily over an unnamed-sources-infused storyline in the investigative phase, it’s hard to imagine that media is capable of objective coverage of this president.

A recent Harvard University poll said as much, categorizing story coverage of Trump in his first 100 days of the presidency at 80 to 93 percent negative by ABC, NBC, CBS, the Washington Post and the New York Times. President Obama’s first 100 days carried a negativity quotient of about 40 percent.

This president has taken on directly some really hot-button issues, so some of the negativity is well-earned and to be expected. And the media is supposed to be tough on the president. He’s the leader of the free world. Healthy cynicism comes with the territory.

But those negativity numbers are evidence of an unmistakable chip on the media’s shoulder that flies in the face of its mission of objectivity. The tone of news briefings, news conferences, media gatherings and stories is over-the-top cynical on issues that clearly cry out for two-sided coverage.

The average American living and working outside the bubble of the Washington Beltway sees the two sides and wants information that feeds that narrative. They see the lack of objectivity. They see the convenient undercoverage of unlawful resistance that is a daily embarrassment to our democracy.

And the result is consumer media confidence numbers at historic lows.

We need an objective, watchdogging media. We don’t need a bunch of journalists not living up to their code who act like children upset they missed the election story and seeking revenge in the form of daily attack stories, the real news be damned.

Some of this venom should have been spilled on President Obama, who formally pursued more restrictions of the First Amendment on individuals than all of the previous presidents combined.

Trump’s trip wasn’t an American apology tour from media favorite Obama – an embarrassingly weak tactic that bore no fruit over an eight-year period. But by any measure, regardless of what you personally think of him, President Trump’s first world trip laid the foundation for solving some of the world’s greatest challenges. The coverage by much of our mainstream media reflected both how softly they covered Obama and how harshly they report on this president.

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