Morning Joe and Mika — Journalists, I Say, Not.

So every morning for the last two years I started off my day listening to Morning Joe on MSNBC.  I started during the primary season and oh, how Morning Joe and Mika loved Donald Trump.  Their gleeful and self aggrandizing interviews.  Their fawning, their supplication for his favors. When did journalists become part of the story?  What happened to objective reporting?  Their visits with Trump at Mar-A-Lago; Joe’s claims that his “closeness” to Trump was no different than other journalists’ closeness to other presidential contenders.  These are all the red flags of partisan journalism —- the conflict that comes with the seduction of being part of the game.  The mornings where they gleefully discussed how Trump had made a fool out of Bush and Kasich and others running for the Republican nomination.  Over and over again they welcomed Trump to their show, fawning over his every word, thrilled that they were part of the game. Instead of doing the deep dive into the qualifications of the men running for the job, the hard, heavy lifting of journalism, they instead boasted about Trump’s prowess in making others look foolish.  They chortled together with their cast of many to advance the notion that making others look weak and silly made Trump look strong, all the while giving him credibility and hours of free airtime.  Journalists are not supposed to be yucking it up with the people that they cover on their morning news programs and at swanky resorts in their pursuit to be rock stars.  Journalists are supposed to be objective purveyors of the game on which they are reporting — not participants in the game.  Now, Joe and Mika try to backtrack.  Trying to claim they had no part in helping to get Trump elected.  Acting as though they were and are objective journalists.  Yes guys — you played a role — you were not objective journalists then and you are less objective journalists now.   Saturday night nailed it, you are wannabee stars — trying to play journalists on TV while wrapping yourselves in your own self-created drama, and clinging tightly to your 15 minutes of fame.

Fawning over Trump did not give you credibility, and your attempts to redeem yourselves by your even less objective current morning reporting makes you even lesser journalists now than you were before.  Your current morning righteous indignation does not erase your role in helping to get Trump elected or even worse your failure to give others equal time and equal respect.  In fact, your current, one-sided, completely non-objective lambasting of Trump makes your hypocrisy all that much more transparent, and makes it certain that CNN will now be my choice for early morning news.

Pictures from http://www.businessinsider.com/joe-scarborough-new-york-times-donald-trump-2016-11; Saturday Night Live; and http://mediaconfidential.blogspot.com/2016/02/scarborough-trump-friendship-causing.html