Eric StarkmanEric Starkman

If I had a client that was disliked and distrusted by most Americans, I would counsel them not to aggressively promote a “Saturday Night Live” parody skewing their arch enemy if the skit also portrayed them negatively. While seeing a nemesis torched on national television is satisfying, companies whose business success is predicated on trust and credibility must focus their reputation management on how they are publicly perceived. Unless you’re in the cable or telecom businesses, being viewed as less deplorable than your competitors isn’t a winning strategy.

The media has been clacking with considerable delight about Melissa McCarthy’s damning SNL parodies of Sean Spicer, President Trump’s press secretary. The skits (see here) are indeed brilliant and hysterical; after watching them it’s hard to see or listen to Spicer and not look for signs that he’s off kilter. For people who loathe Trump and want to see him and his minions vanquished, McCarthy hit the bull’s-eye.

But what has been lost on the media is how reporters are portrayed in the skits. They aren’t presented as fearless crusaders in search of the truth, but rather, cowering, disheveled, pain-faced gnats who ask questions to demonstrate their own self-importance. The portrayal is accurate and deadly. As Jody Powell, President Jimmy Carter’s former press secretary, presciently noted in his book “The Other Side of the Story” published decades ago, most Americans wouldn’t trust what they read in the media if they knew who was behind it. Cable news and the Internet have since allowed mainstream reporters to develop public personas and the results have been disastrous; the majority of Americans don’t trust mass media to report the news fairly.  

Bobby Moynihan’s portrayal of Glenn Thrush wearing a fedora is particularly delicious. Thrush is well known to Breitbart’s supposed 45 million readers as the poster boy for reporters who were in Hillary Clinton’s hip pocket; WikiLeaks made public an email correspondence Thrush sent when he was a reporter for Politico to John Podesta seeking approval on a portion of article that mentioned Clinton’s campaign chairman. The email, with the subject header “Sorry to bother you,” pleads with Podesta not to “share or tell anyone I did this.” Thrush was hired by the New York Times a few months after the disclosure, which optically speaks volumes.

Then there’s Jacob Bernstein, the New York Times feature writer who called first lady Melania Trump a “hooker” while seated next to the model Emily Ratajkowski. Ratajkowski was disgusted by the comment. In addition to his poor judgment stating unfounded rumors as fact, Bernstein’s supposed “apology” also is laughable. “Speaking at a party in what I thought was a personal conversation, I nevertheless made a stupid remark about the first lady,” he posted on Twitter.

A “personal conversation?” The rules of engagement that reporters have long adhered to have been that unless someone agrees in advance that something is off-the-record, it’s fair game to quote them with attribution. Moreover, I’m guessing Bernstein wasn’t seated next to Ratajkowski based on his personal merits, but solely because he’s a reporter with the New York Times. The idea that a representative from the newspaper of record was openly spreading unfounded rumors was definitely newsworthy.

And finally, there’s Brian Stelter, CNN’s media critic, who credits “investigative journalism” for being responsible for Michael Flynn’s resignation from his national security adviser post. I’m sorry, but when reporters break stories based on leaked confidential information from people with an agenda who wish to remain anonymous, that’s carrier pigeon journalism, not investigative work. And as someone who’s leaked considerable information over the years, I can tell you with authority that when people choose to leak information to individual reporters, the selection is never based on perceived integrity and smarts, but rather who will give the information the biggest bang. Publishing leaked information should rarely be regarded as a badge of honor.

A growing narrative is that the media is on the cusp of uncovering a scandal of the magnitude of Watergate. Perhaps. But there are even a few level-headed journalists in the mainstream media who acknowledge the media’s reckless zeal and have taken note of the myriad errors and dubious stories that have appeared lately in the New York Times and Washington Post about Trump and Russia. T.A. Frank, a writer for Vanity Fair, has counseled that “both outlets, and many others, must be treated with even more skepticism than usual.”

I wouldn’t bet against the mainstream media ultimately bringing down Donald Trump. But if the media achieves its goal, they are going down with him. Of this I’m certain: The Trump Administration and the media deserve each other.

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Eric Starkman is co-founder and president of Starkman, a corporate and crisis communications firm. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter, @ericstarkman.