Representing

The President raised questions once more about his commitment to freedom of the press last weekend when he complained on Twitter that CNN, particularly its international channel, did a poor job representing the U.S. to the rest of the world compared to the more pro-Trump Fox News. His tweet quickly provoked angry and contemptuous responses, particularly from a CNN staffed who noted that it was the President's job, not the news network's, to represent the nation abroad. It certainly wasn't any news network's job, the critics agreed, to represent the country in the way that Trump presumably wanted, as a propaganda arm of the state and the party or person in power. Leaving  aside the persistent question of "fake news," since the critics assume that Trump is lying when he accuses them of lying, what we have here is a conflict between journalists' critical imperative, rooted in the American belief that dissent is the health of the state, and Donald Trump's Chamber-of-Commerce mentality, which prefers, if it doesn't require, that everyone be a booster rather than a kicker. Airing any of a community's dirty laundry is always bad for business from this perspective, though Trump himself had no problem crying "carnage" during his campaign and all the way to his inauguration. In any event, his preoccupation with the media remains troubling, even if we concede that certain media outlets are genuinely hysterical over his presidency. His expectation that everyone, including the media, rally around him unquestioningly is, like it or not, un-American, no matter how many Americans, incapable of thinking of themselves as un-American, cheer him on.