They say Washington is a Democrat town. And yes, broadly that's true. 

It's a city of bureaucrats, staffers, political tragics, media spinners and lawyers. Add to that the large African-American population and you have a consistent Democrat constituency. 

But it is also an establishment city — a city of think-tanks, policy wonks, lobbyists and political professionals. 

When I first arrived in DC as a correspondent just after the Obama inauguration in 2009, the place was buzzing. 

America's first black president came to office promising hope and change. "Change has come to America," he said.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-06/donald-trumps-unpredictable-style-...

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has suggested US President Donald Trump is wasting his time by complaining about media coverage, citing the example of British wartime leader Winston Churchill.

• PM says complaining about media is like a sailor complaining about the sea
• Turnbull says he will carefully assess any requests from US for more troops
• PM says Australia and NZ will continue to advocate for free trade

Mr Trump has repeatedly described media criticism of him as "fake news" since taking office last month, labelling the media as the "opposition party".

On Thursday, the US President dismissed a growing controversy about ties between his aides and Russia as a "ruse" and a "scam" perpetrated by a hostile news media.

Mr Turnbull, whose relationship with Mr Trump got off to a rocky start earlier this month, said the 45th American President should stop focusing on the media.

"A very great politician, Winston Churchill, once said that politicians complaining about the newspapers is like a sailor complaining about the sea," he told reporters in New Zealand.

"There is not much point. That is the media we live with and we have to get our message across and we thank you all in the media for your kind attention."

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-17/donald-trump-malcolm-turnbull-medi...

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Meanwhile at the Brainwashing Post:

In 2013, it was revealed that Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Post and retail behemoth Amazon, had secured a contract for $600 million with the intelligence agency — an agency that also happens to be seemingly rebelling against President Donald Trump. The contract came just four months after Bezos purchased the newspaper.

“News media should illuminate conflicts of interest, not embody them. But the owner of the Washington Post is now doing big business with the Central Intelligence Agency, while readers of the newspaper’s CIA coverage are left in the dark,” Norman Solomon wrote for AlterNet. Despite requests to disclose its affiliation, the Washington Post repeatedly refused to post disclaimers confirming its owner’s business ties with the agency.

The contract was for a computing cloud developed by Amazon Web Services, which services all 17 agencies within America’s intelligence community.

“For the risk-averse intelligence community, the decision to go with a commercial cloud vendor is a radical departure from business as usual,” Frank Konkel noted in the Atlantic at the time.

The news of the secretive deal sparked outcry within the journalism community.

“If some official enemy of the United States had a comparable situation — say the owner of the dominant newspaper in Caracas was getting $600 million in secretive contracts from the Maduro government — the Post itself would lead the howling chorus impaling that newspaper and that government for making a mockery of a free press. It is time for the Post to take a dose of its own medicine,” journalism scholar Robert W. McChesney wrote in a statement released by the Institute for Public Accuracy in 2013.

read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/201702171050803948-wapo-bezos-cia-deal/

No wonder there are leaks coming from the "secretive" agencies against Donald Trump... The WashPost's darling was Madam Clinton — the destroyer of Libya and Syria... The choice of President was thus between a nasty deceitful woman and an idiot. Fanbloodytastic. The world could not be in better hands. And the media still peddles half-facts, colourful facts of fictions and straight stories with added bile and various poisons. 

Meanwhile our own Donald, Macolm of Point Piper, tells his mate Donald to dismiss the media as irrelevent to his own grand plan of raping the planet with clean coal and other exclusively profitable flipflops. Mal's voice this morning on ABC news sounded like a man who knows he is doing the wrong thing but will do it anyway because there is a vicarious pleasure in doing the wrong thing. 

Yep, our Malcolm was still pushing for company tax cuts, which are designed to make companies that do not pay tax due to fiddles with overseas tax heaven, get closer to the official tax level, still without paying taxes, making their crime a bit less of a worry. Meanwhile Malcolm's government is killing people: 

According to Sesno, the former CNN anchor turned academic, journalists need to do a better job of explaining their value and process.

For instance, Trump has painted leakers as vile and unpatriotic. But the press should also defend them as whistleblowers who help hold government accountable. “How do we explain that leaks are part of the process of both journalism and democracy?” he said.

It also means stepping back and admitting some of journalism’s problems, Sesno said, such as elitism and a lack of connection with, for instance, rural white working-class voters.

Feldstein thought there was reason for Trump to reconsider his strategy, too. To explain, he cited the old adage : “Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.”

“Ultimately the media does have the last word,” Feldstein said, “including literally writing his obituary when he dies. So there are long-term costs he will face for his approach.”

READ MORE:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/17/trump-media-press-relati...

Sure. But when the leaks went against the darling of the liberal media, Hillary Clinton, the media claimed FOUL... Foul, foul, interference from the Russians (which was never demonstrated, nor verified) and "fake news". 

A Russia Debate took place at the Oxford Union on Thursday. One side of the dispute argued that “the West treats Russia unfairly,” and the other claimed that the animosity towards Russia and the sanctions against it are a result of its conduct.

Following the event, RT met with speakers from both parties – the proposition represented by Sir Tony Brenton, British Ambassador to Russia from 2004–2008, and the opposition led by John Andrews, senior editor for Project Syndicate and one of the leadings editors for The Economist.

RT: John, during the debate you mentioned media perception of Russia. How balanced do you feel that is in the mainstream Western media, not perhaps so much towards Putin, but towards the crisis in relations with Russia right now? 

John Andrews: My point is that there is a balance in the way that the mainstream media, the proper media, treats both “sides,” if you want. I think we treat Russia fairly, with a proper analysis of what is going on in Russia. I think we do the same for Western Europe and the US. Then comes the question of perception: Who do you think is right? But there is not a lot of common ground between my side of the debate and Tony’s [Brenton] side. A lot of criticism of Russia, as it is. At the same time, I think we also criticize what is happening in the West. In particularly, for example, the Trump election. That was my main point.

And I do have some sympathy with Moscow, the Kremlin argument that if we take, for example, Crimea. What is the difference between Crimea and Kosovo? Or if you take the question of Partnership for Peace with Ukraine, and so on. Wasn’t that really an invitation to join NATO? You can see these things in various ways. One can understand what I would call the sort of paranoia of Russia. But that paranoia is not without some cause. I think it is exaggerated. Nonetheless one could also understand it.   

RT: Tony, is that something you would agree with?

Tony Brenton: Up to a point. John is right that the good bits of the British media, the good bits of the Western media, do go to a lot of trouble to get Russia right and report objectively. I have to say the Economist is one such example. Nevertheless, there is a narrative about Russia which dominates coverage in the popular media, which is that Russia is an evil, revanchist, cunning, manipulating threat.

Russia is obviously pretty unscrupulous in various ways, but I believe it is grotesquely exaggerated. It produces some truly absurd stories, like the wonderful story which was that the Russians deliberately leaked the last episode of the BBC Sherlock Holmes because they had some irritation. I’ve been slightly surprised over today, not to have seen a story about how the Russians are responsible for the bad weather here – Storm Boris. That narrative, which dominates as a popular coverage, infects the quality coverage as well to an extent. It is dangerous, because it makes it much harder for Western politicians to do sensible business with Russian politicians.            

read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/378527-russia-uk-media-brenton-west/