The Denver Post recently featured an Associated Press (naturally) piece on Trump’s latest “scandal” – firing the messenger, the former director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Erika McEntarfer, for supposedly shady performance metrics. Apparently questioning math is heresy now. The article doesn’t investigate Trump’s concerns or even attempt to ask if the data might be flawed, it simply defaults to roasting him like he’s the Thanksgiving turkey.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Trump fired the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he claimed the numbers didn’t add up, AP calls it chaos.
- The outlet dove headfirst into ‘how dare he’ mode without even pretending to analyze if Trump had a point.
- Every quoted commentator was from a past Democratic administration. Objectivity? Never heard of it.
- There’s no trace of curiosity about whether data could be politicized or – get this – wrong.
- The piece reads like a sermon from Mount Holier-than-Trump; journalism has left the building.
My Bottom Line
Look, I cringed along with everyone when Trump canned his stats geek in public. Not exactly smooth PR. Firing your numbers person for a bad report feels like pulling out your GPS while you’re still lost. But let’s pump the brakes on this melodramatic media dogpile that smells more like clickbait than investigation.
Did anyone at the AP, or anyone still impersonating a journalist, bother asking if maybe, just maybe, Trump had a point? Numbers ain’t gospel anymore, folks. Data gets warped more than reality TV storylines. From COVID case counts to climate scams to employment figures with more disclaimers than an Apple update, we’ve seen those digits twisted like balloon animals by bureaucrats looking to sell us their brand of truth.
What’s worse, firing the data nerd or blindly worshipping suspect spreadsheets without batting an eye? When media outlets immediately grab their pitchforks anytime Trump questions anything, without even entertaining the premise, it becomes painfully obvious that journalism has been replaced by narrative stenography. Would it kill somebody with press credentials to say, “Hey, let’s bring in an independent analyst and see who’s actually full of crap”? Nope, the headline’s written, outrage posted, and virtue sufficiently signaled before the ink dries.
In today’s America, where trust in institutions is lower than Congress’s approval rating – and that bar is buried under several feet of hypocrisy – you’d think someone would have enough damn curiosity left to pull back the curtain and peek at what’s driving “the numbers.” But nah, easier just to bash Trump because… well… it’s Tuesday and orange man bad.
Journalism 101: Ask questions. Journalism 2025: Blame Trump and go home early.
