This is how journalists become pro-Trump propagandists

It starts with a party platter from Walmart

Donald Trump and the media.
(Image credit: JOSHUA LOTT/AFP/Getty Images)

Journalists like to flatter themselves as being a vital part of democracy. In movies like All the President's Men and Spotlight, they are bold truth-tellers holding the powerful to account. Indeed, that is how some journalists behave. But there's another side of journalism, a more seamy and unpleasant side: that of the courtier press, hacks always ready to serve those in power. Donald Trump — who has repeatedly whipped up hatred against reporters at his rallies and speculated about opening up libel laws to make them easier to sue — is a clear and present danger to morally upstanding journalism. But for the hacks and lickspittles, Trump is an opportunity. There is status to be had, and money to be made, abasing themselves before the new regime.

For the prime example of this latter breed, look no further than Mike Allen. Trump is going to take power soon, and what is Allen doing? Tweeting pictures of a friendly off-the-record gathering at his Mar-a-Lago estate between various journalists and the Trump entourage. None of Trump's slanders of the press, or contempt for democratic norms, will stop the practitioners of access journalism. He hasn't held a real press conference since July, but all it takes to get this crowd warmed up for President Trump is what appears to be a party platter from Walmart.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.