An oft-aired criticism of reality television shows is that their writers manufacture faux conflict in a cheap bid for ratings.  Evidently, the creative minds in the left-wing media have taken a page from the book of reality TV producers, as they've made it their mission to provide viewers with hysterical and sensationalized coverage of Trump's transition into the White House.

Though the public lamentations of CNN and MSNBC hosts like Rachel Maddow following Trump's victory were entertaining, they proved to be rather short-lived.  Mainstream media hosts hurriedly pivoted to scrutinizing every pick and potential candidate for President-Elect Trump's cabinet, depicting the standard selection process as a messy disaster.  A recent article on CNN described the transition as turbulent and chaotic while failing to provide any meaningful justification for such characterizations.

To the media, Trump shifting his focus from one short-lister to another can never be chalked up to a simple change of heart, but must instead mean that his team is plagued with indecision.  Likewise, the appointment of two individuals who don't particularly like each other earns him a charge of pitting his subordinates "against one another."

The CNN article went on to infer that the process had been made hectic by Trump's own design:

If the Trump people wanted it to be the no drama Obama transition then Trump would make it happen – but they don't.

The aim is to portray Trump as an incompetent and indecisive leader.  Every surprise move is painted as rash impulsivity, followed by a period of second-guessing. This tactic is not a new one; the media took the same angle on Trump's selection of Mike Pence as his V.P., and it was widely reported that Trump immediately regretted his choice and attempted to back out.  These claims appear to have originated from CNN's Dana Bash, who provided no source for the allegation, and a Trump campaign spokesperson denied the story outright.

The Huffington Post's reporting on the incident encapsulated the media's intentions perfectly: "Not exactly an impressive performance from an aspiring decider-in-chief."

For every new tapped appointee, a flurry of hit pieces surfaces to explain precisely why the individual in question will plunge America into eternal darkness.  Most recently, Jeff Sessions, whom Trump selected for the position of attorney general on Friday, has been targeted by all the usual suspects for his alleged white supremacist and racist past.  Like all good stories, the charges have a modicum of truth at their center: 30 years ago, a black lawyer accused Sessions of calling him "boy."  Though the claims were never substantiated, the incident delayed Sessions's nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee, causing him to withdraw his name from the list of potential candidates.  This sequence of events, along with other similarly questionable allegations, has been twisted in creative ways to produce the following excoriating headlines:

The same news media are supplementing their tales of chaos by drudging up stories about the Trump University controversy.  Again.  According to recent reports, the slew of fraud lawsuits surrounding the program are approaching settlement.  And it's a good thing, too.  Trump's decision to settle these suits rather than battle them out over a period of years has put him in a position to more fully dedicate himself to governing, while also sparing him further negative press on the topic.

Yet news organizations such as NBC, Reuters, and others are instead using the occasion to remind readers of Trump's controversial comments about Gonzalo P. Curiel, the judge overseeing the case.  Trump argued that Curiel's Mexican heritage and strong ties to the immigrant community posed a potential conflict of interest for the case, resulting in unanimous cries of racism from a chorus of politicians, pundits, and news networks.  Never mind that in 2001, now-Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor stated in a speech published by La Raza Law Journal that the ethnicity and sex of a judge "may and will make a difference in our judging."  When a woman of Puerto Rican heritage says it, it's insightful; when a white Republican says it, it's racist.

Expect more of this as Inauguration Day approaches.  It's not as though the reality-show left is imaginative enough to seek out new material.