CNN anchor Brian Stelter said President Trump’s “erratic” behavior is getting worse and it is time for the news media to cover the trend more seriously.
“Are members of the news media tiptoeing around obvious questions about Trump’s instability? What do the daily lies, distortions and contradictions add up to?” Stelter wrote in a piece Sunday headlined, “The hardest Trump story for the press to cover: His fitness for the job.”
It’s past time to stop tiptoeing around Q’s about Trump’s instability. Here’s my analysis piece for @CNN…https://t.co/dZFc4ie8JD
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 26, 2019
Stelter listed off several incidences of Trump’s worrying behavior, including the president suggesting Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is an enemy to the United States, his incendiary comments about Democrats and the state of Baltimore, and denying he said things that were captured on tape.
“The list goes on and on, but the list is necessary in order to cover the big picture of what’s going on,” he wrote. “That’s the challenge for national news outlets. All of these stories are covered in the moment, individually, by reporters who use words like erratic, volatile and unstable to describe Trump. But rarely are the words and actions covered in their totality.”
Stelter noted that there are “legitimate ethical questions about having this conversation” but said there are “ways to cover the fact pattern around Trump and his actions that are reportorial, not political, in nature.”
“By all means, let’s debate the ethics. But the press shouldn’t tiptoe around this story anymore,” he wrote.
