De-Pressing

As Michael Moore pointed out last night, the president elect's news conference featured a bravura performance by the speaker and a challenge to the media.  Either accept that they will be played unceasingly by the new administration, or roll up their journalistic sleeves and begin some hard reporting on the facts.  A case in point is the now infamous dossier published by Buzzfeed which purports to document the compromising information and pictures of Trump while he was in St. Petersburg and Moscow at various times during the past few years.  Many argue that they should not have published unverified information.   But it turns out virtually everyone in DC has known of these rumors for months.  The public was left out in the cold.  Now, realistically, there is no way to verify much of the allegations contained in the document.  Maybe if we ask politely the Russian intelligence agency will share with us!  However, the sources of the information we now know about were considered reliable enough by our intelligence agencies that they briefed both Obama and Trump regarding their contents.  Since Buzzfeed published, other sources have come forward, so it is possible that by risking their journalistic reputation, Buzzfeed may well have done all of us a service.  We are about to inaugurate a president who will in all likelihood make us the laughingstock of the world and susceptible to blackmail by a long time adversary.  We deserve to know how and why this is so and to put pressure on our elected representatives to remedy this situation.  This is the challenge facing journalism.  It is also a challenge to all US citizens.  As president Obama put it the other night, it is our most sacred duty.