'Dude fires people': How the chaotic Trump news cycle confuses and misinforms the public
By Margaret Sullivan Media Columnist May 14 at 5:53 PM
Journalism has been called the first rough draft of history, but last week it felt more like an adrenaline-fueled doodle on Snapchat scribbled in one frantic instant only to disappear the next.
The media world was blown off its axis as President Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey on Tuesday, unleashing a hurricane of assertions, counterclaims, obfuscations and threats.
The news cycle, once a stately 24 hours, was reduced to mere seconds. It was hard for dizzied news consumers to know what, or whom, to believe. Thats bad. Worse yet is they may decide its not worth caring.
Most Americans absorb Washington news with an approach of Wake me up when you people stop fighting, said Ari Fleischer, a White House press secretary under George W. Bush.
There is a big difference, he told me, between Washington insiders who are hanging on every development and Americans who dont have TVs on their assembly lines or in their cubicles.
While not intensely focused on the news, he said, people are well aware of the overall chaos.
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