In a turn of events that may surprise some, Donald Trump expressed a few relatable insecurities this week. First he questioned the attractiveness of his beach body, then he blasted Time magazine for an unflattering cover photo. In fairness, he wasn’t wrong. He called the picture, taken from below, “the worst of all time”. People have focused on the wattle neck, the gossamer hair, the inside of his nostrils.
The question he asked of the editorial decision was actually a pertinent one. “What are they doing, and why?” This is the kind of scrutiny that the press should attract, except that media literacy is dying a fast death – and that has a lot to do with Trump himself. Constantly lambasting Pulitzer prize-winning publications as “fake news” and then retweeting Photoshopped images and deep fakes isn’t helping the situation.
