Media columnist Michael Wolff says journalists are “having a nervous breakdown” as they attempt to cover President Trump.
The Hollywood Reporter columnist and Newsweek writer told CNN’s Brian Stelter on “Reliable Sources” Sunday that the press goes into a “fit of apoplexy” after every move from the White House — an overreaction he said damages the media’s credibility.
“As we try to go after his credibility, our credibility becomes equally a problem,” Wolff said. “I think individual journalists are, in many cases, having a nervous breakdown.”
Wolff included Stelter in that analysis.
In a Newsweek column last week, Wolff wrote that Stelter “turns to the camera every Sunday morning and delivers a pious sermon about Trump’s perfidiousness.”
Stelter asked Wolff on Sunday: “Do you feel that my style is wrong, or my substance is wrong, trying to fact-check the president?”
Wolff countered: “I think you can border on being, sort of, quite a ridiculous figure. It’s not a good look to repeatedly and self righteously defend your own self interests.”
Wolff also said he thinks the media “does not need defending by the media.”
And he characterized the Trump administration and the opportunity for reporters to cover it as a “golden media age.”
“I think this is unusual, and I think it’s actually a great story,” Wolff said. “Which is why I am, like all of us, spending every day on it.”
But Wolff drew one distinction.
“We spend time on this story because it’s so interesting,” Wolff said. “Everybody else, however, is saying, ‘We spend time on this story because it’s so appalling.'”
