Somehow back in the early days of media and politics an unspoken agreement was made. I imagine this was pretty early on – perhaps when Gronk, the caveman, decided he wanted to be the leader of his cave dweller tribe and thought it best if Donk, who was drawing pictures of the walls of the cave, left out any drawings of him and current tribe leader Lemo’s teenage daughter, Beebo.  Amazingly, this tacit agreement lasted far into the future – past Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy and only ended when Democrats and Republicans ran out of mud to sling at each other.  In the 50’s, candidates were free to call each other commies all day long but leave the girlfriends out of it. This perfectly aligned with the male chauvinist dominated era (what men in power commonly refer to as “the good ‘ol days”).  Well, at some point it all came crashing down – perhaps with Representative Wilbur Mills (D-AR), who was found intoxicated with stripper Fanne Foxe. He was re-elected anyway, but resigned after giving an intoxicated press conference from Foxe’s burlesque house dressing room in 1974.

Another unspoken agreement between the media and the politicians was commonly referred to as “the honeymoon period”. This also unspoken agreement involved the media celebrating the newly elected president during his first six months of office. It was an attack-free period.  This is when the Kennedy Camelot legends were spawned.  But those days are gone.  The opposing party and certain media allies were discrediting and calling for impeachment the day after Obama was elected.  The same with Donald Trump.  There is no honeymoon period anymore and the press which once turned a blind eye to major indiscretions  now seizes upon the most minor infractions like a starving dog on a bone.

I’m all for the truth, but we’re still not getting that. What we have created is the double life – one for the public and one for the insiders. Nearly every politician, and most celebrities of any kind, lie all the time – either with the words that come out of their mouth or by what they are not saying.

This has led to a huge lack of trust with the public. It’s actually a little amusing – I mean here is an army or public relations people and a host of very highly paid media “handlers” all trying to make sure that the right things and only the right things are said to the media when most of us don’t believe anything anyone in those positions say anyway.

Then, as if this situation wasn’t already a total circus, you bring in Donald Trump who has spent so much of his existence doing and saying whatever the heck he feels like, that no amount of premedia briefing and press preparing is going to have much of an effect on him. I mean, even when he wants to be safe and slick, he can’t do it.  Of course, this has nothing to do with how good or how bad of a president he might be.  This is about public perception, excelling at living the double life. How would you like to be his press advisor?  Talk about a hopeless job.  And how fed up must Donald Trump be at having to be cautious and careful about what he says to any one wearing a press badge.  Now, we’re not necessarily talking about Ben Bradley and Katharine Graham here.  We’re talking anyone who can land a job and a white house press pass.  At one time, these were the best and brightest, but that day moved on long ago.  There is still a great difference between the New York Times and the National Enquirer – but it sure isn’t what it used to be.

Back when guys like Edward R. Morrow and Walter Cronkite were trying to figure out how to get more people to be better informed so they could make wiser choices, a fellow by the name of Don Hewitt created a television program called 60 Minutes which he hoped was a way of making the news more entertaining so more people would pay attention to what was happening in the world.  It was a great and noble intention, but it worked so well that it kind of backfired.  Hewitt’s 60 Minutes became one of the most successful television program in history.  At last the common man was really embracing the news. But then something happened.  Television programmers who before had previously considered the news a public obligation which was presented as accurately and genuinely as possible with no fluff, now realized that the news could garner ratings.  This soon led to what Don Henley of the Eagles referred to in his song Dirty Laundry as follows:

We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who comes on at five.

She can tell you ’bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye.

It’s interesting when people die — Give us dirty laundry.

The handsome news anchor and beautiful co-anchor soon dominated newscasts across the country and, predictably, the ratings soared. Soon to follow was the headlines at 5, teasers and the serial news story which never failed to boost the ratings another notch.

Through all this, political scandals soared. Now, it is almost impossible to tell how well an elected official really does his job because, with all the hoopla, no one is paying much attention.

What happened to telling the truth?