Harrop: Trump critics are feeding his media machine

What should traditional media do? Make clear he’s lying. Tell what the lie is. Then go back to the truth. If there are part-truths in what he’s saying, include them.

Happily, respected news sources are getting better at treating the raw sewage before sending it through the pipes. When Trump lies, they are now less inclined to copy-paste his statements in the headline. Instead, they center on the truth he’s dismantling.

Trump is very good at framing his tweets. Through word choice, he decides what the story is. Too many of his critics strengthen it by using his words. A skeptical reader who’s read “Crooked Hillary” a million times may start to believe the message.

A reporter’s dilemma

The media’s Trump dilemma goes well beyond what they write about him. Swiss journalist Patrik Muller notes the results of excessively covering provocative politicians. To illustrate, he uses the example of Christoph Blocher, a Swiss populist making waves in the 1990s. “In retrospect, it’s widely accepted that Mr. Blocher’s exuberant media presence, and his demonization, helped him rise,” Muller writes in The Wall Street Journal.

Muller is surprised by American journalism’s lack of discretion in choosing things to obsess about. Did the media have to spend so much time, he asks, on tweets about Roseanne Barr, Kanye West and the Stormy Daniels case?

Many of us would like to see more old-fashioned coverage of issues. That Trump tries to insert himself into everything we talk about doesn’t require us to put him in the center of the discussion.

My Twitter feed is populated by people I like and generally, though not always, agree with. But it is polluted by tweets parroting every stupid, offensive and false statement coming out of the president. Some of my Twitter mates drench their disapproval in cloying melodrama. Annoyingly, they also amplify the idiocies of Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter.

In the end, they are doing exactly what Trump world wants them to. And the Trump cult enjoys seeing his detractors blow their tops in outrage.

I know, I know, my Twitter confreres. You’re riled up. Well, you’re letting them rile you up.The best revenge on publicity freaks is to starve them of publicity.

Take a break. You’ll need your energy for the midterm elections. That’s when the Trump era can start crumbling in earnest. That would be something even Trump couldn’t frame his way out of.