GLENN: So this is the -- this is the recommendation that the press is starting to kick around and think is a really good idea.
Donald Trump and his forthcoming presidency may be the greatest gift to Washington journalism since the invention of the expense account. His unorthodox approach to politics and governance has vaporized the standard, useful, yet boring script for reporting on the new administration's doing.
The news conference last week, Trump began the process of washing the press completely out of his fake hair, as he castigated CNN and Buzzfeed for reporting on the oppo research dossier compiled against him.
Fake news, said the man who has appeared on Infowars and commended the outlet's efforts. Trump's surrogate, Newt Gingrich, took to Sean Hannity's Program to assist the maiming of the media. Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Now, what do you think the press is going to say? What do you think they're going to do?
What do you think their recommendation on how to handle the next four to eight years?
PAT: Oh, it's unfair. Because I already know what the answer is. So...
GLENN: In his own way, Trump has set us free. Reporters must treat inauguration day as a kind of liberation day, to explore news outside the usual Washington circles. He has been explicit in his disdain for the press and his dislike for press conferences, particularly to the nth degree about being challenged and known for his vindictive way to those who cross him. So forget about the White House pressroom. It's time to circle behind enemy lines.
What a surprise.
Washington reporting has long depended on transactional relationship between sources and journalists.
So, in other words, we like to sleep with each other. The White House press dinner is obscene and grotesque.
Journalists groom sources. But sources also groom journalists. There's nothing inherently unethical about back scratching. When a reporter calls an administration source to confirm an embarrassing item, the source may agree to confirm, as long as the reporter at the very least agrees to listen sympathetically to the administration's context. Blah, blah, blah.
So they're now suggesting that the press just go openly hostile to the president.
PAT: Because he's hostile to them. So just go back at it.
GLENN: Right. Right.
PAT: Uh-huh.
GLENN: Like he started it was ever a good argument to do something.