Media Mum as Charlie Sheen Wishes Death to Trump

Here’s your latest explanation why so many Americans don’t trust the media.

Charlie Sheen sent out a Tweet Wednesday wishing death to President-Elect Donald Trump.

Literally.

Dear God;

Trump next, please!
Trump next, please!
Trump next, please!
Trump next, please!
Trump next, please!
Trump next, please!

🖕🏾

©

— Charlie Sheen (@charliesheen) December 29, 2016

This happened Wednesday. News in our cyber age travels fast. When TMZ.com reported that movie legend Debbie Reynolds passed this week, within moments other major news outlets repeated the awful news.

It takes only an hour or two for some stories to careen across our smart phones and laptop screens.

This very week we’ve seen major sites like TheWrap.com cover how Steve Martin deleted a harmless tweet mourning the loss of Carrie Fisher. That was newsy enough for many scribes. Several sites even posted video news summaries of the imbroglio.

New York Magazine devoted an entire story to slamming Martin for the well-intentioned tweet.

Yet so far the media isn’t very interested in covering Sheen’s Tweet. A good faith search found no stories on the subject at Deadline.com, The Hollywood Reporter or Variety.

Not only has Sheen kept the message on his page, he pinned it as well. For those unfamiliar with Twitter, that means the Tweet is the first message you see when you go to his official page.

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Right-leaning web sites appropriately pounced on the former “Two and Half Men” star. Breitbart News, The Blaze and Fox News all covered a message which could bring Secret Service agents to Sheen’s doorway.

So far, a couple of “mainstream” news outlets shared the news.

The Daily Mail led with the social media outrage pouring in against Sheen. That was better than Yahoo News, which reprinted a snarky piece by Uproxx.com. That story took a whimsical approach, essentially tut-tutting over that bad boy Sheen.

Here’s how the “news story,” inexplicably under the Yahoo Sports label, wraps:

But you know, not to wish death on anyone, particularly the next President of the United States (regardless of how you feel about him), but when you think about it, it’s kind of incredible that Trump has managed to evade 2016’s clutches for as long as he has. The guy is 70, eats like crap, doesn’t exercise, and has just been handed literally the most stressful job in the world. If that’s not a recipe for disaster then I don’t know what is.

Step aside, Woodward and Bernstein.

Now, imagine if Jon Voight wished for President-Elect Hillary Clinton’s death weeks before her inauguration. The uproar would be sudden … and swift. The actor would be forced to apologize. His future gigs could be in jeopardy.

“You can’t hire a sexist on MY film!”

A lifetime of brilliant film roles might be shoved aside as Hollywood demanded its pound of flesh.

Now, does anyone think Sheen will suffer any consequences from his Tweet? Of course not. The same may not be true for the mainstream media.

These are the same reporters who sat on their hands as “Saturday Night Live” repeatedly mocked Melania Trump. First Ladies are generally off-limits to satirists, especially if they don’t get involved with politics in a direct manner. Yet Mrs. Trump, who doesn’t even call the White House home yet, is the target of ridicule from both “SNL” and Stephen Colbert.

When Joan Rivers joked that First Lady Michelle Obama was “transgender,” CNN immediately sought the comic out for clarification 

The media’s dwindling reservoir of trust with the public may take yet another hit if outlets don’t respond with the appropriate outrage.

UPDATE: Deadline.com finally got around to covering it, but did so by transcribing Sheen’s silly reaction to the imbroglio — all sans outrage or critical context.

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