Political Tuesdays: How did we get to this point?

 It was a quiet Saturday in the church fellowship hall, sewing machines humming and ladies talking. I demonstrated how to piece a Jacob's Ladder block, Gail demonstrated how to make a neck cooler to deal with the heat wave, fabrics were displayed and shared. Then someone checked a phone, and announced, "President Trump's been shot!" and the world seemed to shift on its axis.

We saw the instantly iconic photo of Trump, bleeding and raising his fist in the air to reassure and motivate the crowd. There was a discussion of the Secret Service (I shared my personal story, which I'll save for a more lighthearted moment in blogging). We wrapped things up and prayed for Trump and those affected by the shooting. On the drive home I listened to the radio news and observed a troubling repetition: "possible assassination attempt." It was the same when I flipped on the TV at home. ABC was using "possible" as the qualifier of choice. NBC and CBS were also similarly guarded... the language I remember was "apparent gunshots" and "apparent assassination attempt" well over two hours after the event and even the morning after. There was some speculation that it might have been a bb gun, or firecrackers. Fox was the first that actually used plainer language; they called it an assassination attempt, and a shooter, and they were honest about what they didn't know. There was a real fatality, and one wonders how other media outlets planned to spin that. I have nothing but contempt for people and organizations who call themselves journalists but refuse to communicate plainly because it might hurt their favorite candidate.

Regardless of the future, there needs to be, in the security world, an accounting for the lapses that surely contributed to this, and in the media world, an increase in editorial discipline to keep biases from creeping into reporting. Because streaming is everywhere in real time, and false narratives are created for fun and clicks, and the current President is clearly suffering from deterioration in his faculties. I'm old enough to remember the Reagan assassination attempt, and my mother's stories of the Kennedy brothers. I'm also old enough to remember the glory days of the daily newspaper, and reading up on major world events with a reasonable confidence that I was being told the truth by the reporters, to the best of their ability to determine it. Broadcast journalists have a disadvantage; they see the same footage as we do, and they have to keep talking so people will keep watching. But analysis falls by the wayside in a fluid situation, and they usually end up talking to fill empty airtime, and bias creeps in. If you're really that fearful of a lawsuit, it would be better to say nothing and let the images speak for themselves.

Or alternatively, if you are really afraid, so very afraid, that the guy you hate might win because of something you say on air, maybe you should get out of the field formerly known as "journalism."