PUBLIC SIDES WITH TRUMP ON MEDIA – AT 12:21 P.M. ET:  It seems that the president's assaults on the media – and that's what they are – reflect sentiments held by large numbers of Americans.  From Fox:   

Howard Kurtz says that the latest Fox News Poll shows that Americans are "so polarized" and that there is "so much distrust" of the media.

The poll, released Friday evening, reflected that 45 percent of voters trust President Trump more than the media, while 42 percent say the media are more trustworthy.

On "The First 100 Days," Kurtz said the poll should elicit some "soul-searching for our [journalistic] professionals."

COMMENT:  This is the second poll recently taken that shows a plurality of respondents siding with the president.

The result is not surprising.  For years, decades really, the press has drifted further and further away from the American people, and drifted closer to the ruling elites in Washington, the universities, Manhattan and the nicer parts of Beverly Hills.

The press we have today derives most directly from the journalism that grew up in the 1960s – less driven by "reporting the news" and more by "interpreting the news."  My mentor at The New York Times, Lester Markel, who was one of the inventors of interpretive journalism, always warned that it could easily lead to editorialization within news stories.  The line between interpretation and opinion is very thin, and I'm afraid our mainstream media has crossed over it repeatedly. 

The public is smarter than journalists realize, and sense what has happened.  And people don't enjoy being patronized.

February 18, 2017