I am loathe to discuss this latest Trump “gotcha” by the GOJ, mostly because it seems it’s just another attack pn the guy because he’s considering running for president again. This story, though, highlights what I really want to focus upon and that is the reaction from the press when one of these big stories drops in their lap.

Just like any story of general interest, whether it be the horror of a mass shooting, a deadly airline crash, or any thing else that may be projected as some sort of cultural altering event, the media, the press is all over it before there is any actual information to pass along to the public. As in the recent DOJ fiasco with the Trump estate in Florida, it was all that was discussed on television, on the cable news channels, all week. Depending on whether the audience might favor or disfavor the ex-president determined which channel a person tuned into at the time. I wonder if CNN gained any audience this last week?

I actually stopped watching any news on cable after the second day of “coverage” because everything the anchors and especially the pundits invited on to give their thoughts that are mostly opinion, was speculation. That isn’t news. News is who, what , when, where, why, and possible, how. They knew who and what and that’s it. you learn more in a couple of hours when a convenience store in your area is robbed. This went on all week(I checked back in occasionally), and of course spilled into the weekend. And AG Garlands “news conference”, which I happened by accident to see, did nothing but pour more fuel on that rampant speculation.

This is only the latest. Remember when that Malaysian airliner went mossing in 2014? Believe it or not some knot head on CNN speculated that the plane might have been the victim of a black hole. A Black Hole. This was not some crazy guest, but one of their premier (evening) anchors at the time. Who is still employed by CNN today.

When there are no facts, make them up until we’re shown facts to be other wise than we’ve reported, seems to be the mission of the news industry as a whole. Some will say it’s because of the competition that there is a rush to be first, Shouldn’t there be a need to be right, have all the facts that are available, and refuse to speculate further before more facts are available?

One more example going back eve further. I think it was in 2000 that there was an Alaska Airlines crash, in the ocean, at Los Angeles International Airport.This was another high story because, as it turned out, there were no survivors. What was interesting was the door to door coverage. For instance, I was watching Fox News at the time and they showed what looked like to me a blank screen, with voices in the background, again speculating, on everything from the possible cause, to possible survivor’s, to recovering the “black box”.

That wasn’t a blank screen though, although it was: it was a camera pointing out to the ocean, at night. What the purpose of that was I have no idea. Rarely, the distance, a light may pop on for a few seconds but that was it. It was a useless endeavor and added nothing to the story other than there were people out searching in the darkness. total darkness, as it appeared on screen.

There are more examples, hundreds at least (thousands?) and all it points out to me is that the media need to rethink what they do and present actual news and forego speculation completely no matter what the “story” may be or if it’s linked to something else. In the meantime, I think going back to local news, is probably best, at least for me. I’ll still find out about these “big stories”, but they’ll be over in a minute, rather than a week, or more.