On Monday's Meet The Press, host Chuck Todd and panelists Brian Karem and David Folkenflik complained about the expectation to remain impartial, stating such journalistic principles are a relic of a bygone era to which they should no longer be beholden.
"But look, two generations of us as reporters. We're trained and conditioned to don't show emotion, we're the umpires and the referees," Todd began.
"When somebody is insisting on making you the story, what do you do?… I struggle with it."
You don't say! Newsbusters provides the summary and segment clip:
It was clear that Todd didn’t know how to be an unbiased reporter as he opined about how he and other journalists weren’t trained to deal with Trump’s “moral failings.” “Somebody tweeted that journalists today were never trained to cover moral failings very well. And in some ways, this is what makes this more difficult,” he told his fellow partisans. “We're not good with having to say what's right and wrong sometimes because again, we have been trained to be dispassionate and the umpire.”
He also championed Brian Karem who recently flipped his lid and yelled at Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders during a White House press briefing. “And you gave voice this when you said: ‘We're just trying to do our jobs here. What are you talking about,’” Todd hyped.
NPR’s David Folkenflik expanded upon Todd’s frustration with the need for journalists to be unbiased in their reporting. He talked about how new generations were supposed to learn from “mistakes of the past” and denounced the apparently outdated idea that news should be fair and balanced. “You and I, we’re trained on the idea of being down the middle and scrupulously impartial, and you have seen recalibration to the idea that doesn't always capture, not only, the facts in front of you but the truth of those facts assembled to become,” he complained.
Folkenflik then added that "the idea of saying: 'Well, this is one hand and this is the other hand, and therefore we’ve captured a journalistic fairness,' is often a deep disservice."
