American media, don't sulk at President Trump

Twitter is made in America.

Obsessed as it is with everything and anything American, the US press promoted it so much so that the 140-character social-media platform became a benchmark to gauge anyone's social status.

A trend that the American media started by following trending hashtags on Twitter for broadcast and print stories rapidly became a trend in the global industry.

Many digital and broadcasting outlets of international repute would daily collect the garbage of "he tweeted, she tweeted" and post it online to complete what they would advertise as the people's stories.

Again, America's mainstream media attached extravagant importance to the count of followers on Twitter handles.

So, if a poor man like me has some 1,000 of them, I would not be worth my salt in their scheme of stratification.

But if I do some theatre that leads to a spike in my following, I'd arrive in this new-age life primarily defined by American press.

Essentially, the US media lowered its own standing by reducing itself to being a postmaster of Twitter and Facebook posts.

Journalism suddenly became easier than ever. And the infection spread fast across the industry.

Decision-makers and potential decision-makers were much smarter than the press thought they were. Why hold news conferences if the mainstream media is out there to generously grab a handful of tweets?

After all, it's the press of the world's richest and most modern nation that has already glamourised this form of so-called interface, which essentially is akin to monologues of colonial viceroys.

So if now the new US president, Donald Trump, rebukes his country's media, he very well realises he doesn't need it anymore as a vehicle of communication.

In fact he knows America's mainstream press needs him more than he needs the White House press corps.

So if Trump is a disruptor of standardised politics, the US media should not sulk at being sidelined by him.

If you, as journalists of what is supposed to be the finest in the business, discovered tweets as comfortable content for reporting, allow him to bypass you for similar comfort.

Yes, it's great to invoke democracy and remind the masses of democratic propriety.

Why don't then American media houses - operating as they are in the world's greatest democracy - bring about their own democratic disruption in the corporate world.

Why work under a mountain of bosses appointed by their bosses?

Take a lead and have your journalists elect their supervisors. Can you?