Smoke and Mirrors, Trump-style

"If You Could Believe Your Eyes and Ears" was the title of The Mamas and The Papas' debut album back in the 1960s.  It could also be used to describe President Donald Trump's efforts to deliver his own version of the truth, and how the mainstream media is trying to deal with it.

Trump has had a running feud with any media that isn't Fox News or Twitter since before he was elected.  Recently he met with A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of the "failing" New York Times, during a White House visit.  Sulzberger later said he tried to get the President to stop using phrases like "fake news" or "enemy of the people" when referring to journalists, whom he feared might come to some kind of physical harm.

The Times publisher could have been referring to incidents like these:

• As boos rained down on the media covering Trump's appearance at the VFW convention in Kansas City, the President told his audience:  "Just remember what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening".  Which is an easy thing to say when your administration is so chaotic that nobody really knows what's going on, with the ongoing Russian election investigation that he calls a "witch hunt" and charges that he's getting too chummy with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
• A reporter for Trump's least-favorite network CNN named Kaitlan Collins was barred from a White House press event.  Her crime?  Daring to ask the President too many questions about his dealings with the Russians.
• Jim Acosta, another CNN reporter Trump loathes, was heckled by supporters at one of the President's campaign-style rallies in Tampa, Florida.
• There is dissension in the ranks, however.  First Lady Melania Trump reportedly watches anything she likes--including CNN.

Of course, the MSM has not exactly been helping themselves in the cause of preserving independent journalism.  The proposed merger of Sinclair's and Tribune's broadcast TV stations (for which the FCC is currently having second thoughts) and actual merger of AT&T and Time Warner (which owns CNN) could have a negative impact.  So are major layoffs at newspapers such as the New York Daily News and the Denver Post.

There are also reminders that responsible journalism still matters.  Prestigious awards are still handed out to deserving stations and networks, mostly for their breaking news coverage of disasters and mass shootings.  Newspapers like the Star Tribune in Minnesota still do major investigative pieces, such as the one they did recently on sexual assault victims who are still waiting for law enforcement to handle their cases years after the crime was committed.  This is what happens when you put money and resources into a news operation, not when you cut and cut and cut until there's nothing left or when you have an ideological bent to promote.

Trump can keep manipulating The Base into believing things are going great under his leadership as much as he wants.  But when he keeps denigrating the very people and organizations who exercise their First Amendment right to cover the President in a fair manner, we all become part of the little world he's created where every lie he tells becomes public policy and his subjects just lap it up.

No, we can't "believe our eyes and ears".  Not when the President challenges the notion of what is fake and what is real, and we all suffer for it.