Poor Donald Trump. He's obviously the victim of a vast media-led conspiracy.
Who is he kidding by attacking the press? His main opponent is not Hillary Clinton as he claims, and it is not the news media by a long shot. It is himself.
I thought I still lived in the United States under a pluralistic democracy and free elections. His latest brilliant idea -- just in case he loses the general election -- is to say the system is rigged and even the nation's top journalists at The New York Times and CNN, are corrupt.
Just the fact that the Trump name is on the ballot makes that less believable as far as I am concerned. So does the limited success of Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
The facts are not important to Trump who has decided he will send his people to "monitor" the election process at the polls. This election would be exciting if Trump was not busy turning it into a sideshow act not unlike a Jerry Springer rerun. This is the United States, Mr. Trump, not the Atlantic City boardwalk.
Having visited his glitzy casinos and watched his TV show as well as read his book, Art of the Deal, I find the prospect of a Trump presidency scary. It is no surprise that the word demagogue has been used to describe him.
Maybe the so-called, "crooked media" will manage to cover him against his will of course, perhaps with intelligence and wit. Trump did make a distinction between the local and national press corps. On Sunday afternoon Trump wrote, "It is not 'freedom of the press' when newspapers and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want even if it is completely false!"
In fact, Trump pinpointed the very definition of a free press and he has the same freedom he uses to spit at a field I love. His diatribes may become helpful teaching materials for me as a college journalism instructor who works with young and older students as they increase their journalism skills, these are extremely important in an age where everyone with a blog thinks they are serious journalists.
"He should be especially, especially protective of the First Amendment. He could be in jail in Europe for some of the things he's said about Muslims," Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment lawyer, said on CNN's Legal View.
Very recently "fair and balanced" journalism at Fox News was exposed as coming from news people forced to work in an environment of sexism under the corporate leadership of disgraced Roger Ailes who allegedly disrespected female employees for which the organization, Fox, faces a payout of more than $10 million.
Those who have repeatedly poked fun of Fox News, such as comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert found it tough to hide their glee at Fox's plight. Although I support the journalists who are working at Fox, I too must celebrate the problems at the top with Colbert and Stewart.
For the sake of former students who have left to join Fox networks, I can only hope things straighten out.
As someone who leads a journalism MA program, I usually stay out of politics as much as possible. Yet it is impossible not to speak out squarely against Trump 's destructive tactics against journalism. This is something good about today's digital news environment. His blatant disregard for democratic norms is made instantly clear to every one with a computer monitor or TV screen.