Greg Bruhn: Trump and the media

Regarding the Jan. 12 news article “Trump concedes Russia interfered in election”: The president-elect effectively silenced Senior White House Correspondent for CNN, Jim Acosa at his first news conference after the Nov. 8 election by refusing to answer his question and charged CNN with broadcasting “fake news.”

It appears that any news report that casts the incoming president in a negative light is subject to that classification.

There needs to be a distinction between those who create fake news and have it broadcast, and media outlets that identify and report allegations that are worthy of scrutiny to prove or disprove their reliability. I believe most of us know the difference between a fact and an allegation, just as most of us know the difference between a lie and the truth.

The legitimacy of President Obama’s citizenship was questioned and repeated by the incoming president so many times in the past, it was believed by many to be to be true. The rumor turned out to be fake news, and the truth that existed all along had to be repeated.

We can take away from the recent CNN reporter’s experience that much of the information received during future presidential news conferences will probably be the filtered version.

This story was originally published January 17, 2017 at 6:03 PM with the headline "Greg Bruhn: Trump and the media."