The Hill, RICHARD BENEDETTO:

As members of the news media wade into the turbulent waters of the new Trump administration, there is confusion over the part they should be playing.

Their traditional role is that of the Fourth Estate, the unelected fourth branch of government, which on behalf of the people is charged with holding the other three branches accountable. But in the early days of the Trump administration, media members appear to have cast themselves as the opposition party, taking positions in opposition to the new president at every turn.

When Trump adviser Stephen Bannon, and then Trump himself, criticized the media for taking on the role of the "opposition party," and when Bannon said the media ought to "keep its mouth shut," the howls from the news industry were afire with indignation and outrage. "We will not shut up" was the most common response to Bannon's angry tirade.

Bannon should not have told the media to "keep its mouth shut." He might better have said, "Calm down." We vitally need a free and independent press. It is a cornerstone of our democracy.

What many Trump supporters are asking for is straighter reporting and analysis not filtered through a liberal or Democratic lens.

While most political reporters and editors might be liberals — they overwhelmingly donated to Democratic candidates and seemed to favor Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the last election — most of the country is not. A Gallup Poll released in January found 36 percent of Americans identified themselves as conservative, 34 percent as moderate and 25 percent as liberal, making this a slightly right-of-center country.

Little surprise, then, that another recent Gallup Poll showed declining public trust in the media to report the news "fully, fairly and accurately"; a record-low 32 percent in 2016. And media trust was much lower among Republicans, at 14 percent, than Democrats, at 51 percent.

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