Donald Trump, who was going to tame the media with a single tweet, is running into one little problem: His disastrous management skills are producing better material for reporters daily than a bullpen of Onion writers could in a month. Paul Farhi writes:
Unauthorized transcripts of phone conversations between President Trump and the leaders of Mexico and Australia went public last week. So did details about the administration’s stage-managing of Trump’s Supreme Court pick. Drafts of executive orders, including one that would grant legal protection to people and businesses that discriminate against same-sex married couples on moral or religious grounds, also slipped out before they were ready for prime time. [...]
The breadth of the leaks has surprised — and, of course, delighted — journalists, who say it gives the public an unfiltered view of what those in power are thinking and doing. The leaks of Trump’s calls to Turnbull and Peña Nieto may have been the most surprising of all; it’s rare for transcripts of presidential phone calls or details of meetings with foreign leaders, especially potentially embarrassing exchanges, to leak so soon afterward.
“Given Trump’s erratic nature and lack of experience, especially in foreign affairs, these leaks may be more important than ever,” says David Corn, a reporter with the muckraking Mother Jones magazine. “They give us a sense of how he’s doing his job” and what important advisers such as Stephen K. Bannon and Jared Kushner are telling him to do.
There's all sorts of theories about why Trump's White House is leaking like a fire hose. One is that his administration is in absolute chaos; another is that competing factions in the West Wing are selling each other out to curry favor with their boss. In some cases, it may actually be pro-active damage control.
Source
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/ymNR1CNacCo/-Relentless-leaks-from-Trump-s-White-House-Make-Journalism-Great-Again
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