Pruden: A hearty last laugh for the Donald

Donald Trump’s greatest contribution to America will be his stripping the media, particularly the overpaid and undereducated television media, of its last pretense to fairness and objectivity.

Most of these correspondents of the “legacy” media no longer even want to be called objective. They’ve heard a higher calling, to commune as equals with the high priestess of Delphi at the Temple of Apollo.

The natural antagonism between politician and oracle is an old one, and in earlier days the needling and teasing was good fun, harmless entertainment for the reading public. Some of the jabs occasionally drew a little blood, like nicks on the chin from an errant razor, but nobody required a transfusion. It was sometimes hard to see who suffered most, because one of the characteristics shared by pol and pundit is a skin approximately the thickness of bible paper.

Once upon a time a conscientious reporter or even the pundit with license to fire both barrels, understood that staying out of the tank was more effective, and more comfortable besides, than firing from inside. There were editors to keep the correspondent impressed by himself from embarrassing his newspaper.

The late A.M. Rosenthal, the executive editor of The New York Times who died disappointed because he failed to restore the newspaper’s once-high standard of objectivity and fairness, understood that a good editor’s first responsibility is to keep his troops working from the neutral zone. Once, when a female reporter sought permission to march in an abortion-rights demonstration and cover the story from there, Rosenthal the demanding editor became Rosenthal the Solomonic arbiter of rights.

“Sure,” he said. “If you want to [have sexual congress with] an elephant, be my guest. But if you do, you can’t cover the circus.”

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