Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. 

By Britt Nelson

There is talk of Laura Ingraham, long-time conservative radio talk show host and Fox News contributor, becoming President-elect Donald Trump’s press secretary. Does it matter if Trump choses a press secretary with proven loyalty to Trump? No. Press secretaries are supposed to go out and face the mainstream media with stern loyalty to the boss and stand up for policies – controversial or not. If Ingraham become Trump’s press secretary she will do him proud, much in the same tradition as Dana Perino for President George W. Bush. They are friends.

Trump’s administration is beginning to take shape with Reince Priebus coming in from the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee to be White House chief-of-staff. And then there’s Trump’s decision to bring in Steve Bannon of Breitbart News to join his team and this appointment is raising eyebrows.

Bannon, 62, looks like a disheveled, overweight, crusty ole bar fly with graying hair, puffy cheeks and a bright-red gin nose, but he sports quite a resume including a Masters Degree in Business Administration from Harvard University and seven years as a U.S. Navy officer serving on ships in the Pacific. He’s an American businessman, conservative-style filmmaker and media magnate. He is also executive chairman of Breitbart News, a politically-conservative American news, opinion and commentary website promoting anti-establishment and alternative-right views worldwide, according to his biography.  He has been picked by Trump to be a senior White House adviser after his stint as chief executive officer of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Bannon is no light-weight contender.

Democrats and mainstream media have been quick to pounce on Bannon accusing him of the same things about racism and bigotry that liberals now apply to any white man having anything to do with Trump and/or helping to form his administrative team that will take office on Jan. 20^th. Their criticisms are all too familiar, shallow and quite frankly boring, and will carry no weight except for fueling organized anti-Trump protests that continue in cities across American more than a week after Trump won the presidency in a landslide Electoral College win over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

You’d think the Clinton folks would accept it and go home. They are all looking silly and small compared to the shadow Trump and his emerging international and domestic policies are now casting around the world as foreign governments, the U.S. Congress and state capitols adapt to a new reality.

Getting back to issues of the media, when Trump takes office he should kick the White House Press Corps off of Air Force One. If they want to cover the president then they will need to get their own airplane and they can well afford it after receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from Trump, Clinton and all the other candidates running for the U.S. Congress plus state and local offices. It has been a tradition for decades that the WH Press Corps accompanies the president on Air Force One, a large Boeing 747, when he travels overseas or across the USA.

But given the treatment of Trump by the mainstream media during this presidential campaign, they should be locked out to fend for themselves. That space and air time could be better spent giving orphaned children a ride to the states, or a veterans group celebrating a reunion overseas or taking Doctors Without Borders to a war-torn location or to a disease breakout. These possibilities are endless and much more worthy than carting around a bunch of woodchuck reporters wanting to cut Trump down. They can buy their own ticket.

Hopefully Trump will not release his travel schedules until the very last minute as he’s taking off from Andrews Air Force Base leaving these bonehead ‘journalists’ scrambling around for a rental jet.

It was widely reported Wednesday that Trump and his family ditched the WH Press Corp and escaped their prying eyes in order to have a private ‘let-your-hair-down’ family dinner, but sure enough the media started whining because they got deservingly left in the dust in the Big Apple.

Mainstream media’s coverage of Trump before and after the election has been stunningly biased and undoubtedly the WH Press Corps will feel the pain of losing their credibility, being left behind and smoked by Air Force One.

About the Author

Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.

Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.