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Does media understand that one reason politicians never stop lying is that even after they've proven themselves to be unreliable sources media keeps reporting on them as truth-tellers—making actually *telling* the truth immaterial to someone like McConnell? https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/there-will-be-orderly-transition-mcconnell-dismisses-trump-s-refusal-n1240933
Imagine a media landscape in which a politician can *lose their status* as a truth-teller—meaning media stops using them as a source, or reporting the things they say as being anything but claims. How many years ago would Mitch McConnell have lost the right to straight reportage?
Mitch McConnell didn't "dismiss" Trump's position—that's the reporting a *reliable source* gets. What Mitch McConnell did was "decline to adopt Trump's rhetoric about the election," though "with McConnell's history his intentions necessarily remain inscrutable and unreportable."
The day is coming when media will understand that the only way to exist in a post-truth DC environment is to refuse to play along. Sources who lie publicly, or privately to reporters, lose their status as sources. Their words and actions are covered via an *alternative* protocol.
News consumers have a responsibility too: a responsibility to understand that *reportage* is susceptible to just parroting the words of liars—and always has been—which is why the term "journalism" includes many other journalistic acts, including columns that call BS on reportage.
