Mainstream media needed to watch over Trump administration

Perhaps no institution has been so reviled in the Trump era as the so-called mainstream media.

Mocked for failing to grasp the forces behind the rise of Donald Trump, attacked for spreading “fake news,” pitied for the collapse of its financial foundation, traditional media limped into 2017 seemingly on its last legs.

Yet, it is the most mainstream, most traditional sort of news media that after just over three weeks has exposed the nascent Trump administration for what it is: a band of dissembling amateurs flailing about in the White House, embarrassing both themselves and their country.

The inflection point in this unfolding story was the forced resignation late Monday evening of Donald Trump’s national security adviser, the mendacious general Michael Flynn.

And that came entirely because of old-fashioned reporting by a team of journalists at one of the jewels of traditional media: the Washington Post.

It was not an upstart online operation, a social media outlet, or any sort of new media that blew the whistle on Flynn’s dissembling about his contacts with Russian officials. It was the Post, icon of the trade since the long-ago days of Watergate, that ensured his downfall with a series of wellsourced reports starting late last week.

On Tuesday, the White House confirmed that Trump was officially informed on Jan. 26 that Flynn had changed his story about what he discussed with the Russians.

Spokesman Sean Spicer argued that the president finally fired him on Monday — 18 days later — because of an “evolving and eroding level of trust.”

What really changed, though, was simply that the Post blew the whistle in the way that it and other “mainstream” news organizations have been doing for decades when they expose bad behaviour in high places.

It reported that Flynn had not told the truth when he denied discussing sanctions with Russia’s ambassador to Washington before the Trump team took office.

Trump was content to keep all this secret until the facts were forced into the open. Only then did he act.

It’s easy to understand why the president has conducted his own personal war on the traditional news media. He’s out to discredit institutions that question his version of events and challenge his power. He has tried it with the U.S. courts, referring to “so-called judges” who rule against his executive orders. And he continues a frontal assault on the role of the American media as a check on presidential authority.

The fall of Michael Flynn after just over three weeks in power is remarkable for many reasons, in particular for the chaos it has revealed behind the scenes of Trump’s White House.

But it has also shone a bright light on the vital role of the much-maligned mainstream news media in exposing the truth and holding even the most powerful to account. It’s a job that’s more important than ever in 2017.