The Columbia Journalism Review, led by veteran Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Jeff Gerth, spent the last year and a half analyzing “in granular detail” the media’s “tortured dance with Donald Trump. Gerth focuses almost exclusively on the media’s reporting of Trump’s alleged relationship with Russia. “Gerth’s findings aren’t always flattering, either for the press or for Trump and his team,” writes CJR’s Kyle Pope in the introduction to the 20,000 word piece, “The Press Versus the President,” but Pope miscalls the outcome.
“I realized early on I had two jobs,” Trump told Gerth. “The first was to run the country, and the second was survival. I had to survive: the stories were unbelievably fake.” As Gerth proves, Trump’s claim that the news was “fake” was even more right than he knew. On reading this report, if they ever choose to, Big Media reporters will feel much the way Bengals’ defensive tackle Joseph Ossai did on watching the ref throw his yellow flag after his late hit on Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes Sunday. Sick. Forever damaged.