In 2017, the media flunked the Trump challenge

President Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration was notable for more than just its small crowd sizes. It was notable because it marked the beginning of the worst year of political journalism in modern history.

On the same day that Trump was sworn into office, a White House reporter claimed incorrectly that the Trump transition team had removed a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office. Sadly, this erroneous report and a handful of others on that same day breathlessly and unquestioningly parrotted by reporters across platforms and outlets proved to be the norm, not the exception, for a year that has seen a dismaying and troubling decline in the quality of political journalism.