The Media Outside the Courthouse for Trump's Indictment Was Bad, but Their Reaction to George Santos Was Worse

To start off, recall the coverage of the Donald Trump indictment from the past few weeks. Along with all the legal pontificating, there was another component, and that concerned the reaction from Trump Nation and the presence of mobs outside the courthouse in Manhattan. City officials and authorities were prepping for an onslaught. Bypassing that this borough is not exactly a hub for Trump rallygoers, we were assured of a dangerous spectacle.

Let’s not forget that first Monday after the announcement of an impending indictment, when we were promised a dangerous throng would arrive to protest the move. It turned out a mob did arrive – it was entirely comprised of press members. The presence of reporters was so pervasive that one reporter from HuffPo reported on another reporter interviewing someone, who revealed they were also a reporter.

We now cut to April 4. Following a day when the networks obsessively covered Donald Trump leaving his compound – filled with extended live shots of a gate, and then we were told the images of cars on a highway were “historic” – the press outlets sent their best to Manhattan to cover…things. But here is where the distinction needs to be noted; they covered things happening, but did not report on anything approaching “news”.

At one point the beleaguered and mockable freshman Congressman from the area, George Santos arrived. If your reaction to this was, “Annnnnd…so what?”, then you are a proper-thinking citizen. You are also not a member of our national press complex. Behold, as this was the reaction seen when it was announced that there was a George Santos sighting.

Currently swarm of people and media chase out George Santos as NYPD try to stop press going into the city streets pic.twitter.com/Cqr2QpS9Nt

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) April 4, 2023

I always enjoy these instances of impromptu press “stampedes”, filled with nebbish men and quasi-agoraphobic women suddenly motivated to rush headlong to capture some banal triviality of a story. We see it frequently in the rabble of reporters who tail the president while at his vacation home in Delaware. This throng reminds me of the embarrassing reaction at the 2020 Democratic convention when after some of the proceedings Biden elided questions by having the organizers announce that reporters should rush outside — to see fireworks!

And like excitable corgis, they all scurried obediently to do so.

Reporters were told to hurry outside after Biden concluded his speech or they risked missing his fireworks event. They listened. pic.twitter.com/34pUDGeKxj

— Natasha Korecki (@natashakorecki) August 21, 2020

On Tuesday the promised mobs did arrive in New York City, and once again the assembled horde was made up of the journalist set. Graham Kates, of CBS News, was in the frenzy and he unintentionally displayed all of the problems with our current media.

As you can see, media currently outnumber other humans like 100:1

— Graham Kates (@GrahamKates) April 4, 2023

Look at that mob, and that 100/1 ratio in attendance, and then absorb this reality: There was no story to report. As we covered yesterday, Santos showed up. That is it in its entirety. Santos had no bearing on the case, his arrival meant nothing, and as he said when asked why he was there, “Because I can.” Why any reporter who heard the name Santos would be provoked to go run down the man is inexplicable, and not a single report about his arrival Tuesday revealed anything – at all.

This was just like what we beheld on Monday when the entirety of the story could be summed up in two sentences – Trump is leaving for New York. He would be arraigned the next day. But instead, we had hours of LIVE coverage, most of it about nothing, with the only variable being the instances of a man commuting. This is a press industry that is desperate to make a monumental story out of a contrivance. And they are only vaguely aware of what they are creating.

This weekend it was with amusement that on CNN a few of the commenters during their weekend-long obsession sessions expressed concern over what this could lead to. David Axelrod warned that Trump could find ways to benefit from this madness. (You think, Dave? His poll numbers have already been boosted, as he Hoovered up a new $5 million in donations.) Then presidential historian Douglas Brinkley had similar concerns.

In warning that a Trump mugshot would be more popular than a John Wilkes Booth wanted poster and could spark a “neo-civil war”, he bemoaned how this was all becoming “the biggest reality show that’s come to life.” Who exactly has been making a spectacle out of nothing, Mr. Brinkley? This is something to see, CNN pundits complaining about the atmosphere they have been creating.

Arriving for non-riots, swarming figures with no value, and delivering gripping coverage of a plane lifting off are the very makings of a content-free reality show. The press has spent weeks making a complete circus out of this, and now they are complaining about the elephants taking a dump all over and smelling up the place. And not a single journalist will be picking up a shovel to clean up their self-created mess.