I’d love to take credit for the name of this particular blog, but it actually came from Kelly Anne Conway – senior advisor to President-elect Donald Trump who also was his Campaign Manager. In stating the above, she identified what is probably the biggest current fear of the national media: to be left out of the heretofore national media-only process of disseminating all news from the White House to the American people. For decades this outflow of White House news came chiefly from the daily briefings the Press Secretary held. In those meetings only those media reporters and writers whom the President deems qualified enough and cooperative enough to put out the message he so chooses and stated just how the President expects are invited to participate. Any exceptions to this process have historically meant the rescission of daily briefing invitations to any offenders.
Enter President-elect Donald Trump. Does anyone reading not understand that Trump does not like the Media? No, he has made that clear to all. It should come as no surprise that this group of media elitists who have for decades been the mouthpieces of the White House for dissemination of the latest news and information to the nation are trembling and in desperation for their jobs. Why? The idea of not having these daily briefings is actually floating around Washington. And they are all scared to death. Without those White House press briefing they are not needed.
Not only are the White House news pundits fearful – so are senior members of Congress who live on the left side of the aisles of both Houses. It appears that Trump who has lived for years in a world of business in which he has learned through many scrums with media that the truth is not always important to the media. Media pundits know full well that news perception is the only reality that matters to the World. And when they are the sole conduit for shaping and reporting news to the World, they alone hold the power of exactly what to and what not to say, and further to shape that narrative the way THEY choose, not based on the intentions of those who give the stories. Uh Oh…then Trump discovered Twitter.
The political benefits to having and using Twitter are two-fold: 1. The “Twitter-er” can easily speak as often as desired directly to those who follow him or her, or the “Twitter-ees;” 2. There is no mediator who receives the message from the Twitter-er and “interprets” the content of that news to “Twitter-ees.” That makes the mediators (or news reporters/writers) unnecessary. Donald Trump has mastered the art of news reporting in just 140 characters. He discovered that in doing so he can now reach exactly who he needs to reach with the news HE wants to put out. Combined he has 45 million people he can speak directly to whenever he wants, saying whatever he wants without any media filters. (45 million is the combination of his Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram followers) Real example today: By 8:00 AM today he had tweeted six times about several different topics. Each tweet contained no more than the requisite 140 characters. I got the information contained in all six immediately, but not from ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, or MSNBC. I received each of the six as did the other 44.99 other DJT social media followers directly from him! By using this messaging process, Trump got to us all when he wanted with what he wanted us to see and hear. And media hacks are horrified.
This new Presidential method of communicating information to American has horrified even Chuck Schumer – minority leader in the U.S. Senate. The New York Democrat has blasted Trump for “giving his policies to American with 140-character sound bytes. Americans deserve more.”
There are a couple of things in play here that the Liberal Left are struggling to get a handle on. One is that they have always controlled the political information narrative – either by initiating news items or pushing their news items out to their media buddies for print and/or broadcast. Secondly, because of that process, they have always controlled not only the content of what was made news, but the behind-the-scenes narrative of what THEY wanted the supporting “facts” to be. And in many cases it has turned out that those “facts” were just liberal narrative. But by the time Americans discovered that, it was too late. Liberals love that.
Founders of Twitter never realized their platform would revolutionize White House Communications. But it has. Trump has Twitter; Trump has YouTube. With those social media platforms, he can easily bypass the riffraff in Washington D.C. and much more effectively and efficiently reach all those who really count – Americans who live outside the Beltway. Buckle in American media: it’s going to be a heck of a media ride!
