THOMAS PAINE 18 JAN 2017

In case you wondered about whether the media is truly impartial in their reporting...read this, especially the next to last paragraph...disgusting....This from Politico... Apparently more fake news is coming from the mainstream media...We must boycott sources determined to be biased. It is the only way to make them shape up. If President-Elect Donald J. Trump actually does something wrong...report on it from all sides, same with everyone else. We cannot trust our media today. They feed us what they decide to tell us in editorial meetings.

Enough is enough. Send a shockwave in the media's general direction. Tell them you expect better, then tune them out for a while. Punish them economically. It will bring them to their senses eventually... CNN has clowned themselves. NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS and even FOX. Haven't you had enough? Insist they all be truly fair and balanced in their NEWS reporting. Opinion shows are another matter as long as they don't try to sell opinion as news...Opinion as news...A CNN specialty. SO...from Politico...pay particular attention to the next to last paragraph.

"In his own way, Trump has set us free," writes Jack Shafer in Politico. "Reporters must treat Inauguration Day as a kind of Liberation Day to explore news outside the usual Washington circles. He has been explicit in his disdain for the press and his dislike for press conferences, prickly to the nth degree about being challenged and known for his vindictive way with those who cross him. So, forget about the White House press room. It's time to circle behind enemy lines."

"Let's thank the incoming president for simplifying our mission. If Trump's idea of a news conference is to spank the press, if his lieutenants believe the press needs shutting down, if his chief of staff wants to speculate about moving the White House press scrum off the premises, perhaps reporters ought to take the hint and prepare to cover his administration on their own terms. Instead of relying exclusively on the traditional skills of political reporting, the carriers of press cards ought to start thinking of covering Trump's Washington like a war zone, where conflict follows conflict, where the fog prevents the collection of reliable information directly from the combatants, where the assignment is a matter of life or death."

As Trump shuts down White House access to reporters, they will infest the departments and agencies around town that the president has peeved. The intelligence establishment, which Trump has deprecated over the issue of Russian hacking, owes him no favors and less respect. It will be in their institutional interest to leak damaging material on Trump. Ditto the Pentagon, the State Department, the FBI, and even conventionally newsless outposts like Transportation and Labor."

"Like Nixon, Trump may have won a sizeable audience with his anti-press frothings. But he remains unpopular with at least half of the nation, and they constitute an eager audience for critical reporting," writes Shafer.

"The harder Trump rides the press—and he gives no sign of dismounting—the higher he elevates reporters in the estimation of many voters. It's not winter that’s coming with the inauguration of Trump. It's journalistic spring."

Punish them.

"The mind once enlightened, cannot again become dark."

Yours in the Constitution,
Thomas Paine