When Donald Trump first started running for president, the media treated it like a joke. The prevailing tone was, “Can you believe this guy? I mean, really, he is so crude!” It was pretty much the same way the US political media covered other candidates from world of show business like Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger: incredulity and a touch of condescension.

Well, it turns out that many folks could believe Trump, and liked the straightforward way he said things as well. It took the media quite a while to process this. Like until after the election. Once he was president-elect, they started treating him a bit more like a politician. But they were still easily manipulated and thrown off course by him. It was like watching a master puppeteer at work.

There are now signs that the media has made some additional incremental progress. The media is now more aware that it is part of Trump’s misdirection efforts, although it still seems powerless to stop this. It is also starting to call patently false statements ‘lies’ instead of “untruths” or some other euphemism.

The media is still too easily manipulated by tweets, but maybe this will also change with time. Since Trump will never stop tweeting, maybe the media should refrain from reporting Trump’s tweets before they can get an appropriate comment from his nemesis: the Governator.