If you run a website that doesn't have something that's terrible on it, you are not trying hard enough. You have to fail, fail, fail. You have to fail and fail miserably many times.
Hundreds upon hundreds of news outlets - okay, thousands - are interested in following the happenings at the White House. Yet the number of news sources at the White House - people who know what's happening - is finite. Dozens maybe. With that imbalance hanging over the enterprise, it's hard for a group of reporters competing against one another to secure the upper hand.
There really is no foolproof or even optimal way of dealing with White House emissaries who tell whoppers on live television. On the one hand, there's value in hearing what our government has to say about its actions and vision for the future. On the other, news organizations are responsible for the factual hygiene of their product. In some cases, those two imperatives just aren't compatible.
While there are several challenges, I do believe that over the transition and into the Trump presidency, the media as a whole has done pretty good work, as opposed to a spottier record during the campaign. There has been a lot of shoe-leather reporting going on, and the great story thus far of the Trump White House is the willingness of people who work there to leak to the media.
