Washington Post “media columnist” Margaret Sullivan has lately discovered that when political types respond to media inquiries, they “answer” only those questions they choose to answer and smother the rest with verbiage. Being rather new to the capital city, she seems to believe this is a uniquely Trumpian phenomenon, rather than the way Washington works.
The Scrapbook is thinking, in this instance, of a recent, especially apoplectic, column where she advises television chat show producers not to invite Trump partisans or White House staffers to give their side of the argument. Why? Because they’re “proven liars,” says Margaret Sullivan. On some recent Sunday morning shows, for example, Stephen Miller “repeated, forcefully and with great conviction, evidence-free claims that there is widespread voter fraud” in America. Or take Kellyanne Conway, who, when “grilled” by Matt Lauer on the Today show, “slipped and slid through important questions,” leaving viewers “with no answers, except the increasing conviction that the Trump spokespeople are not to be believed.”
Spokespeople not to be believed? Perish the thought!
But if that’s what viewers took away, how is it that the Sunday shows failed? If the Trump “spokespeople” come across as clumsy, cretinous, and transparently dishonest, doesn’t that make for great and revealing television? It is a testament to Sullivan’s blinkered hatred for Trump that the media columnist has renounced her faith in simple journalism.
At least we can marvel at the delightful innocence Sullivan displays about the business she ostensibly covers. For what talking-head TV show, if its bookers demanded absolute fealty to the truth, would ever find a politician who could fill the time between commercials (which are the comparatively honest part of the enterprise)?
