I have been out of connection with “the world” for the past week because I was attending an International System Safety Society Summit and Training meeting (it used to be called a conference until political correctness raised its ugly head and we had to name is something less controversial – but also less clear). Upon getting back to the news I find that Trump held an “emergency” press conference on August 8th. I guess I was a bit behind since it happened before my trip to the Summit but I didn’t hear about it until now.

I’m not sure of the nature of the emergency, perhaps he was lonely and just needed to have someone to talk to – or perhaps he realized that this election thing might not be as easy as he thought. In any case, the week following that press conference the more thoughtful news sources started talking about it. For example, NPR presented the results of a fact checking exercise they did on the material. They found that he lied 162 times in the 64 minute talk (on the average of one lie per 23 seconds). That means that on average the speech had many more lies than truthful statements. It wasn’t a lie now and then, it was an fact accidentally being included now and then. I watched a little bit of it until my patience ran out – I couldn’t stand listening to his lies. However, I was fairly impressed with his ability to create a running non-stop flow of complete vitriol, hate speech and lies. It was an impressive feat of running off at the mouth while saying nothing at all.

I wonder how many people saw the event. It was a press event therefore I assume it was just a few dozen at the most. Perhaps it was televised live, but if so I missed it. Rather than being a rally of some sort, it was clearly intended to get media coverage. It was not meant to be “seen” but rather it provided talking segments to be reused. Since it was promoted as a Q&A back and forth session, there should have been an opportunity for the press to push him on a few of his lies – they didn’t do that. I don’t know if it was possible, but it seems that there could have been a split screen showing him speaking versus a “real time” fact checking. A short delay would have made this possible. His lies were so glaringly obvious, and trivial, that an immediate feedback should have been possible.

As it was, all of his statements went unchallenged, even though all of the big broadcast companies were present. The challenges didn’t come for almost a week, and then they did so on news channels that are probably seldom viewed by his “base.” Those of his base that watched the performance undoubted sucked it up whole cloth believing ever word. The real information wasn’t presented until days afterward and on channels that only speak to those that already are convinced that Trump is mostly a vindictive, habitual liar. He doesn’t say ANYTHING with forethought, knowledge or wisdom – it is just a stream of consciousness that is intended to sway his base.

We all know all of this, even his base knows all about it. What’s missing? I wonder if whats missing is a press that has the guts to tell the truth in a timely and clear manner. It is the press’s fault that his based didn’t get the lies pointed out to them, it is the press’s fault that he is allowed to make wildly false and insulting claims UN-challenged, it is the press’s fault that he has any sort of appearance of sanity, compassion or anything else required to run our country. They treat him as a wonderful gift of constant “news” – he is a blessing to them because there is always something sort of new to say, always video feed to show and always controversy to cover. If they were doing anything close to their “charter” with the American People, they would all being discussing his lies, discussing not only what he said that was wrong but clarifying with what is the real situation. The lies are so great and obvious that they are just plain false facts, regardless of the many more incorrect opinions. Truth is truth, it is not subject to opinion.

We are seeing controversial and contentious politics being maintained by the press because it is controversial, eye catching, and emotionally challenging – and hence “newsworthy.” In short, we are being played the fools. Both sides of the public are being played the fools supporting a failed press system. Once Rupert Murdock and his ilk took reigns of the media, the meaning of “news” became ratings to rake in advertisement dollars rather than the sacred duty to provide the information and understanding that is critical to the success of this experiment that we call democracy.

Great education and an engaged, moral, ethical press are the keys to our success – democracy cannot survive without these two pillars of society, which are shabby at best and getting worse as they interact with each other. A strong and well funded free press is critical to our success, as is the presence of an educated public. Even when we have mediocre (that is a complement) news coverage, it has gotten to be only about 1/3 of the viewing time – the other 2/3 is made up with terrible (super low quality, boring) advertising. I believe that advertising should be banned during “the news.” It has gotten to the point where I find it almost impossible to “watch the news” because there is so little of it, there is so little of importance shown, and it takes so long to wait for the mountains of ads between brief, non-informative bits of “news.”

While I am totally disgusted with Trump and his followers, in many ways I give them a “pass” – his followers are doing the best that they can given the information they have. Generally, I find his followers to be interested, compassionate and interested in the things that I am interested in. However, their “knowledge” comes from a failed news system augmented with a corrupt “social media” echo chamber – and it is getting worse.