It only happens whenever there’s a Republican in the White House…
Major media organizations have suddenly discovered a passion to act as a check on the powerful.
“One thing is certain in the presumptive era of President Trump. Journalists are going to have to be better — stronger, more courageous, stiffer-spined — than they’ve ever been,” wrote the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan.
A few weeks later, the New York Times announced the formation of a new investigative unit to cover the federal government. Many in the press cheered the development as a good first step in establishing some sort of media “oversight” for the incoming Trump administration.
Calls to action are noble. Holding the powerful to account is the reason the press is in the First Amendment, and the power that needs the most scrutiny and skepticism is our federal government. So, cheers!
But where has this fire been for the last eight years? The corollary of the creation of the Times’ new investigative unit is that it didn’t exist during the presidency of Barack Obama. It’s not as if President Obama and his administration have been the most transparent in history, to coin a phrase, somehow obviating the need for press scrutiny.
In fact, it has been the opposite, according to the Society of Professional Journalists, which sent a letter to White House press secretary Josh Earnest in September listing specific ways in which transparency has gotten worse under Obama.