They are largely a force for evil, there’s just no question about it.
Heather Digby Parton is incredulous: rather than repent for their kid-gloves treatment of Trump throughout most of the campaign, and their blinkered straight-from-Whitewater obsession with Hillary’s emails, they are now attempting to legitimize Trump as the world’s most powerful leader.
I think that the only reason the network “news” shows started to get a little more critical of Trump as his election loomed as a real possibility, was their corporate owners’ fear that he would seize their businesses. A Trump presidency is going to be about Trump exploiting his power as chief executive to enrich himself. Now the networks are again groveling before him in the hope that he will not extinguish them.