Kathy Sheridan: Media wakes up to the danger of Trump tactics
US president-elect has had thousands of hours of airtime for his flights of ignorance
Donald Trump: The media is beginning to realise that a neutral voice is a lame tool. Photograph: Damon Winter/The New York Times
There was a time when journalists who had left the industry for professional politics and then returned, were obliged to undergo quarantine – work at arm’s length from their old speciality – for a while. The purpose was to lend distance and shake off any residual partisanship. People may sneer at the point of such lofty ideals in this era of glorious disruption, but what is the alternative?
The alternative is a sitting member of parliament, a wannabe prime minister banished to the back benches, bursting with umbrage and desperate for exposure, endorsement and vindication, flying off to conduct a supposedly neutral interview with a profoundly controversial world leader.