appears, seems, may be ... media in retreat

If I had to guess, I think I'd say U.S. President Donald Trump is scoring a big, fat W -- a winning hand in his attacks on the media. The media are wussing out and caving in and might aptly be accused by those with less polite minds than my own if being the very lackluster pussies Trump accuses them of being.

Consider The Guardian (my more-often-than-not-favorite news source) and it's lede on a story today:

Donald Trump appeared to invent a terrorist attack in Sweden during a campaign-style rally in Florida on Saturday, inviting questions that he may have confused the nation with a city in Pakistan. (emphasis/color added).

At the beginning of every day, I scan several news wires. The Guardian, BBC, Associated Press (who edits their stuff any more???), Reuters, and occasionally the Washington Post. The journalistic arrogance of the New York Times/Boston Globe, in parallel with Fox and family,  is outside what I can tolerate early in the day. As expected, the major outlets huddle together like impoverished masses, covering the same story ... sometimes, but not often, with varying facts. But what I think I am seeing is an increasing willingness of a particular outlet to doubt its assessment ("appeared to invent" instead of the more factual "invented." It doesn't matter if invention were the intent. What matters is whether the fabrication were true.)

This is minor stuff, some may say. All language is only approximate, some may say. But something can be labeled wrong when it is wrong and the apologies can be reserved, if necessary, for later. I sense an increase in Ph.D. pseudo-courtesies like "it appears," "it seems," and other nieceties that doff a media cap in Trump's direction... an exercise he seldom acknowledges and, as far as I know, never mimics. Check it out yourself in the news stories you read. Maybe I'm all wet.

I'm not doing much of an analysis, here ... I just sense that the media are caving in and Trump is as much responsible as dwindling advertising revenues.