“Over the first six months of this young presidency, President Donald J. Trump’s approach to the office has been characterized by self-interest, defiance of basic democratic norms, and often incoherent or self-contradictory communications and priorities.”

That's merely the cordial opener to a report by the open-government, non-profit Sunlight Foundation, which is not exactly a band of crazed lefties, in a report, “On Trump, transparency and democracy.”

What is damning is how this report quickly notes the lousy Obama administration record on transparency but contends the Trump record on open government so far “is inescapable: this is a secretive administration, allergic to transparency, ethically compromised, and hostile to the essential role that journalism plays in a democracy.”

It concedes, “Many White House correspondents, however, have reported Trump reaching out to them directly, approaching press on Air Force One, and inviting them into the Oval Office to talk, in a marked departure from President Obama’s practice.”

But that's about it. Otherwise, it finds the White House's general approach to the press is a “constant state of uncorrected contradiction,” with a penchant to delegitimize journalism daily as “fake news,” the limiting of press briefings and the ultimate sacrificing of credibility.

It started with lies about how many folks were on the Mall on Inauguration Day and, it says, has gone downhill since. To that extent, it's in sync with a subsequent CNN Reliable Sources newsletter take last night, which does a vaguely similar six-month status report and concludes, “the White House press strategy is confusing, contradictory and arguably self-defeating.”

Speaking of liars

O.J. Simpson's parole hearing didn't get positive reviews. The likes of ever-dour Jeffrey Toobin on CNN, who knows the original Simpson case cold and thinks Simpson committed the murders, found him to still be an unapologetic liar ("I thought I had the lost the ability to be appalled" by Simpson).

"OJ Simpson Pretty Much Did Everything Wrong, Passing Blame, Losing His Cool During Parole Hearing" was the thrust of an analysis in Law Newz whose founder, Dan Abrams, had the uninviting task of debating Nancy Grace earlier on Good Morning America.

"When something feels wrong, it IS wrong!" she declared with characteristic understatement, thinking that Simpson should remain locked up. Abrams, who proved correct as to the outcome, replied (correctly), "That's not how the law works."

Campbell Brown's Facebook update

"More than six months after announcing a project to combat fake news, Facebook released an update" about its attempt to offer "training, products and tools for journalists and news consumers."

The update was co-authored by Campbell Brown, the former journalist who is Facebook's Head of News Partnerships. "We’ve learned so much since we launched the Facebook Journalism Project and this collaboration is already driving innovation that we couldn’t have achieved on our own. It’s going to take a concerted effort on all of our parts to help build a future where quality journalism can thrive."

Here's the problem: Yes, after getting creamed for propagating (even if unintentionally) tons of genuinely fake news (as opposed to the president's definition), Facebook has embarked on a good faith effort. But nothing will fundamentally change the deeply asymmetrical relationship one finds between publishers of real content and the social media giants.

This is largely chicken soup. It's well intentioned. It won't hurt. It may help at the margins (such as a bit more fact-checking). But it offers no meaningful response to the diminution of revenues and readership accelerated by the likes of Facebook or an answer to how to pay for quality journalism.