I’m slightly encouraged that the vocation of news reporting is attempting to weed out some bad actors.

(As an aside, journalism was something developed by Manhattan’s post-war cultural elite in the early 50’s and propagated by Universities. News reporting Is not something that can be learned in a lab, but in the firing line of a newsroom. I call myself a newspaperman.)

Some very recent developments:

Brian Ross of ABC News faulty reporting last December that retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn — a National Security Analyst — was set to testify that President Trump told him post-election to make contact with the Russians. FALSE

Conor Berry, a reporter with The Republican in Springfield, Mass., tweeted last Thursday that the shooter at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Maryland left his Make America Great Again hat in the newsroom after killing 5 workers. FALSE. He resigned on Friday after 21 years as a reporter.

While some reporting from the liberal-leaning press has been skewed to demonize the Trump White House — President Trump has used other means like social media and campaign speeches to reach the American people — which perpetuates the press pool animosity.

Case in point NBC’s White House correspondent Jim Acosta screaming out to the president: “Mr. President, will you stop calling the press the enemy of the people,” soon after the Capital Gazette shooting. Implying that the two events were somehow linked.

As the Capital Gazette story developed it showed that the shooter, Jarrod W. Ramos, had past dealings with the staff over a Facebook harassment article about him and he brought a defamation suit against the paper that was dismissed, which appears to be the motive behind the killings, according to local police.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel for the families that lost loved ones in the Annapolis killings. But to use it as former President Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said: “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that, it’s an opportunity to do [say] things you think you could not do [say] before.

Perhaps no longer the gatekeepers to the White House the West Wing pool looks to make their bones by showing up the President, thereby becoming the story. Not the way journalism is taught, reportedly.