Seymour Hersh — the 81-year-old investigative reporter who once called Republicans terrorists and refers to President Donald Trump’s administration as the “new Watergate” — is hawking his new book, Reporter. In an interview Friday with National Public Radio’s (NPR) left-wing On the Media, he admonished journalists for reporting fake news.
“Let’s talk about Trump just briefly,” On the Media co-host Brooke Gladstone said in the interview. “A great deal of ink has been spilled over his administration’s treatment of the media — specifically the lies; whether the press has done enough to press back.”
Hersh said he thinks the media’s constant attacks on Trump are not working.
“My worry about what’s going on is I watch the polls — he’s gone up maybe seven, eight points — that’s 20 percent since the beating up [by the media] got more intense,” Hersh said.
“[Trump is] controlling the agenda totally — totally,” Hersh said.
Hersh went on to criticize the media’s reporting on Trump.
“I look at the cable news and think ‘Have we really come to this?’” Hersh told On the Media.
“I can’t relate to what’s going on,” said Hersh, whose reporting over the years included Watergate and the Vietnam war.
“A lot of tips and a lot of secondhand stuff is being run as serious stories, even in the good newspapers and that’s demeaning,” Hersh said.
Hersh advised the media to ignore the day-to-day stuff, including Trump attorney, Rudy Guiliani’s, “ranting and raving.”
Instead, Hirsh advised, investigate Trump’s Cabinet.
“I would go all over every cabinet member,” Hersh said, like the New York Times “are doing [to Scott] Pruitt,” the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator.
“I would do them all,” Hersh said. “I would do over decisions made.”
“I would do over how things work,” Hersh said. “A daily story about some child taken away from his mother on the Mexican border.”
“It’s so freaking insane,” Hersh said. “I would talk to experts who would tell you how horrible that’s going to be.”
“You’re creating monsters when you do that,” Hersh said.
Like the whole of public radio and television, On the Media is funded, in part, by taxpayer dollars.
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