Herman Cain: I Want To Hear from the President - Directly
I make a point of watching President Trump’s task force briefings every day. It takes some time, but it gives me the most complete picture of what’s going on, what the task force is working on and how we are doing in the fight against the virus.
If not for these briefings, I would not be nearly as well informed as I am.
But there’s a strange movement within the news media that, if successful, will deny me that daily opportunity. Mainstream media types have been complaining for several weeks that the briefings should not be televised live.
To them, it’s dangerous if President Trump has the opportunity to speak directly to the public.
They want the briefings taken off the air entirely, and replaced by a media summary of what was said, along with media “analysis” of what was actually meant, and what was true and what wasn’t true – according to the media.
These complaints started around the first of April, as President Trump’s approval ratings began to rise along with the public’s approval of the way he was handling the pandemic.
The media considered this a major malfunction within the electorate. They’d spent weeks telling us the president had “botched” the federal response to the virus, and now that people were hearing directly from the president and his team on a daily basis, they were agreeing with the president and refusing to follow the instructions of their media betters.
The press were enraged by this, and started complaining that the briefings were serving as a substitute for the Trump campaign rallies that were no longer possible under the lockdown orders.
They also insisted that no real news was coming out of the briefings, which comes as a surprise to those of us who are watching them daily and getting constant updates on trends in the numbers, as well as information about what’s being done and who is helping.
If this isn’t news, then I don’t know what they think news is.
If you’ve read the media’s coverage of the briefings, you know you would not be anywhere near as well-informed relying on them. It’s a constant litany of complaints about what the president said and how he said it, and how he treated the press – which is something most people don’t care about in the slightest.
They think you should let them tell you what you need to know about what happened at the briefings, and they don’t trust you to come to the right conclusions from simply watching it for yourself.
As for me, I want to hear from the president. Directly. He’s the one leading the effort and I’d rather hear what he thinks is important for us to know in his own words. If I don’t think he’s making the right call, I can make my own assessment.
I don’t need the likes of CNN, The New York Times or The Washington Post telling me what’s important in these briefings.
The press are threatened by the idea that we the people can see for ourselves what’s going on, and don’t need them to tell us what happened or how to think about it. It means they’ve lost their ability to manipulate our thinking.
They should air the briefings because they are undeniably news. But they don’t want to because they know that if we watch the briefings, we’ll realize their spin on the news is not honest.
What’s more, we’ll realize we don’t need them at all.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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