WOODWARD SPEAKS ON JOURNALISM AND TRUMP – AT 2:45 P.M. ET:  Bob Woodward, the more thoughtful half of the Woodward/Bernstein Watergate team, has been cautioning his journalist friends for some time now to calm down.  They should take his advice, and take Zoloft as well.  From The Hill: 

Legendary reporter Bob Woodward urged reporters this week to "calm it down and listen more" when covering the Trump White House.

Woodward also cautioned those in the media broaching Watergate and impeachment in speaking about investigations into the Trump campaign and possible collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign. 

"In Watergate, when Nixon fired the special prosecutor (Archibald Cox), there was a mountain of evidence against him," said Woodward in a message to the media recorded in a video by The Atlantic.

"We are not at the Watergate level yet by any means."

The video echoes comments he made in recent weeks. The 74-year-old Washington Post associate editor also said Trump's "thermonuclear war" with the media serves either side no purpose.

Trump has a approach avoidance toward the media, criticizes, calls us fake. I think it serves no one, the media, or Trump, to have a thermonuclear war with each other."

The 18-time New York Times bestseller's final advice was directed at media members directly during a time when trust from the American people is at an all-time low.

"We need to calm it down and listen more," he said. "Be on the surface respectful, but never stop the inquiry.”

And...

"I worry, I worry for the business, for the perception of the business, not just Trump supporters, they see that smugness… I think you can ride both horses, intensive inquiry, investigation, not letting up… at the same time, realize that it's not our job to do an editorial on this."

COMMENT:  Good, sound advice.  I worry about journalism as well.  A free press has the potential to save a society and protect democracy.  It also has the potential to destroy a society and corrupt the minds of its citizens.  Witness the use of the press in Nazi Germany.

The American press right now is deteriorating rapidly.  Some organizations, like CNN, have become editorial pages with reporters attached.  They will learn that it can take as much as a generation for a news outlet to regain its credibility...if indeed it even tries.

May 29, 2017