Why the media can't ignore Donald Trump

We don't make the news. We report the news.

He's here to stay.
(Image credit: REUTERS/David Becker)

Conventional schoolyard wisdom holds that the only ways to rid oneself of a bully are to ignore him or punch him back. In the case of Donald Trump, the American media has tried the pugilist's approach with no luck. And so former CNN anchor Campbell Brown argues in a column for Politico Magazine that it's time to stop punching back, and start ignoring the GOP presidential frontrunner. She is pleading with the TV news media to boycott covering the real estate mogul for one week.

"Let's stop being complicit in promoting his hateful and harmful demagoguery. Just for one week," Brown wrote. "TV turns [Trump] on and only TV can turn him off."

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Jonathan Merritt

Jonathan Merritt is author of the book Learning to Speak God from Scratch: Why Sacred Words are Vanishing — and How We Can Revive Them and a contributing writer for The Atlantic.