24 hour " News"

As we learned in Star Wars, there is always the dark side of the force, the force in this case being the press. The 24 hour a day news channels have to fill the time. They can't fill it with news because there isn't that much. So, increasingly channels such as CNN, M SNBC and Fox have endless panel discussions where  the participants sit around and speculate about the meaning of words lately used by politicians and a lot of trivial matters such as crowd size at the inauguration and the number of votes Donald Trump received and why. To make things worse, these panels are populated by shills from each party who typically are totally devoid of intellectual integrity and are often totally ignorant about important matters. All this does is cement the positions of the partisans who typically watch these programs.

How about trying something different. For instance, Donald Trump just abandoned the TPT and took steps to get the Keystone and Trance Dakota pipelines built. These decisions have economic consequences. Instead of political shills, how about interviewing, or even better arranging a discussion, with people like John Taylor, Glenn Hubbard or Martin Feldman on the one hand and with Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman etc. on the other hand. Have the discussion moderated by someone like Tom Keane of Bloomberg who actually is well-versed in economic analysis.

In other words, quit quibbling about unimportant matters, Report what is actually happening and what is being actually proposed and provide expert ties analysis of these. And, propose direct questions to Sean Spicer or Donald Trump if he appears. Questions such as Will your proposed Health legislation use vouchers and/or Federal subsidies and/or Health savings accounts? Will participation be mandatory? Is the administration going to propose a bilateral agreement with China? What terms and conditions do you see an agreement with China containing? There is little question but that the economic relationship between China and the United States is the most important consideration not only for those two countries but the world. Yet we are hearing nothing.

We have no foreign-policy. So, it is hard to discuss the nonexistent. However, you could interview people with expertise as to specific countries or areas who are generally not thought to be politically partisan. They can discuss the major problems and considerations that must be addressed. It is highly probable that people working for the administration in Congress would listen.

It is time for the press to engage in rigorous fact digging and analysis and quit the bullshit.