The media is once again publishing anonymous, one-source stories about Trump that we can't believe

It feels like old times. After the FBI raided Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, the mainstream media are in a feeding frenzy like we haven't seen since he left the White House.

The usual suspects are at it again, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, which spent Trump's four years in office constantly and spectacularly making fools of themselves.

Dare we say it has "all the signs" of a bad job by the media?

Take The Washington Post. It supposedly broke the news that Trump had documents "related to nuclear weapons," citing a single anonymous source as its source. What does that really mean? Honestly, based on Post's coverage of Russiagate, where so many "bombshells" fizzled when the details came out, you have to wonder if it's the White House pastry chef's recipe for nuclear chocolate cake.

The Times, on the other hand, says that "a person familiar with the exchange" said that Trump tried to send a secret message to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Someone. This is kind of like saying, "My cousin's girlfriend knows a guy" in a journalistic way.

Could these rushed-out juicy details end up being true? Maybe. Given what the liberal press has done in the past, do the American people have good reason to think they aren't true? Absolutely.

After all, we saw these same media outlets treat the fake Steele dossier like the fifth gospel and hold on to the Russian-collusion hoax for years. We saw them not only bury the Hunter Biden laptop story just days before the 2020 election, but also call the reporters who broke that real story "dupes" who were spreading Russian propaganda.

Because of this "print first, ask questions later" mentality, Gallup found that a record-low 16% of Americans have "a lot" or "quite a lot" of faith in newspapers, while only 11% have "a lot" or "quite a lot" of faith in TV news. At this point, there are probably diseases that are more talked about than the news. In both of these questions, trust in the media was about 10 points higher in 2014. This was before Trump broke the minds and standards of every journalist with a degree.

For the past seven years, every story, no matter how big or small, has been treated as if it could be the one that finally breaks the dam, makes Republicans all over the country condemn Trump, makes his supporters feel ashamed, and maybe even leads to the perp-walk fantasy that just won't go away.

It isn't just about Trump either. When the Jussie Smollett hoax and the Nicholas Sandmann smear happened, CNN and MSNBC didn't think twice or check the facts. Instead, they jumped right into the story that these events were proof of the evil racism that, according to them, is so common in our society. The stories fell apart.

Sometimes it feels like our old newspapers are just minutes away from changing the weather report to make people worry about climate change or the baseball standings to make sure all teams are treated the same.

Our news media have been so wrong about so many things so often that you might expect them to do a little bit of self-reflection. But it's clear that the liberal media haven't learned anything as they flood us with half-baked, shaky stories about the Trump raid. There is every reason to think that many of these journalists will win awards for their fake news and refuse to give them back in two or three years when the real story comes out. Rinse and do it again.

Our newsrooms are run by progressives who see existential threats to democracy everywhere but in the mirror. But how can a democracy work well in a country where people don't trust the newspapers? And how can we believe our newspapers when they make such big mistakes and never admit they were wrong?

Trust will slowly come back, but that process could start today if these outlets would just take a deep breath, report the facts, and stop acting like they are on a holy crusade against Trump. It's really their choice.

By David Marcus, he is a Brooklyn-based columnist and author of “Charade: The Covid Lies That Crushed a Nation.”

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