1. For all the complaining I do about American journalism, there are moments worth celebrating. One of those came before the 2016 election when there was a sudden consensus among major outlets that Donald Trump was a liar.
2. Over the past year or so, the press has been rewarded for its courage (belated courage, but still) as Trump lies like an open faucet, reaching his 2,000th false or misleading statement, according to the Washington Post.
3. We are now witnessing another moment worth celebrating after the president asked Congressional leaders from both parties why they were considering about the legal status of immigrants from “shithole countries.”
4. The news broke early evening Thursday, and I thought this would be reported as more of the same, but I awoke to a wonderful and constructive occurrence: there’s now a consensus. The president of the United States is a racist.
5. CNN led the way with Anderson Cooper saying no, this was not a “racially insensitive” remark. This was a “racist remark,” he said. The Times eventually followed suit with this headline: “Time to Say It: Trump Is a Racist.”
6. Then Michael Steele, the former RNC chairman, a black man often called on the soften the Republicans’ racism told MSNBC: "Yeah, I do [think he’s a racist]. At this point, the evidence is incontrovertible. It's right there."
7. It is right there.
8. It has been right there.
9. But many did not want to see it.
10. This includes journalists who should be counted on to see what is right there, but often don’t report what is right there, b/c they can be and are attacked by conservatives for reporting what is right there, b/c conservatives see motive where there is statement of fact.
11. This too might sound like a partisan statement, and I have no doubt reporters for the New York Times and others are ready to regale me with both-sides tales of liberals attacking them.
12. But what they don’t get, sometimes, not always, is that liberals get most exercised when reporters are not reporting what is right there. That is, liberals tend to get pissed when reporters are acting like partisans.
13. In 2016, woke folk screamed at the top of their lungs “this guy is a racist,” and some reporters did respond. But instead of believing their own eyes, and standing with courage beside observable empirical reality, they punted
14. asking whether people think Trump is a racist, and in doing so, bogging down the most obvious fact of the candidate’s life in a quagmire of he said, she said.
15. Worse, some reporters believed that in identifying Trump’s racism, we were rationalizing Hillary Clinton’s loss. Again, this is what partisans do, not journalists.
16. We have not yet arrived at consensus on what should be a non-negotiable: journalists have the right to report what they see “right there” without fear of some conservative somewhere suspecting motive where there is instead merely a professionally rendered statement of fact.
17. Journalists can do this in foreign countries, but not here. And I don’t have any reason to think this will change.
18. Then again, I didn’t have reason to think there would be a consensus on Trump’s allergy to the truth and his bald-faced racism. This president has brought out the worse in journalism, but sometimes he brings out the best, too.
19. End.
