The Associated Press published a story this week about a striking shift in tone from "CBS Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley, who has taken to making strong remarks about President Trump during straight newscasts.
"Soft-spoken yet direct, anchor Scott Pelley is emerging as a blunt evaluator" of Trump, the AP wrote.
Examples of some of his more barbed commentary include:
"The president's real troubles today were not with the media, but with the facts."
"Today we learned the length of the president's fuse: 28 days."
"It has been a busy day for presidential statements divorced from reality."
"Some of the problems Mr. Trump promised to solve last night don't actually exist."
"It seems like the common denominator of Mr. Trump's woes is the Constitution."
"Today, the president had another Twitter tantrum."
"This comes after a rough start to his presidency, a weekend of tweeting tantrums and falsehoods."
"Mr. Trump drew an X today through the welcoming words of the nearby Statue of Liberty."
"Is it appropriate to ask whether the president is having difficulty with rationality?"
As the AP noted, such sharp words are unusual for the traditionally formal evening newscast. Andrew Tyndall, a consultant who monitors the nightly news, said Pelley's pronouncements about Trump are backed up by solid reporting, while Tim Graham of the conservative Media Research Center stated it was evidence of a double standard.
"We're going to remember, this is not the way you were with other presidents,’" Graham said.
So that raises a question: Is Pelley's wording appropriate when Trump does in fact utter falsehoods, such as claiming the largest Republican Electoral College victory since Ronald Reagan or insisting his inauguration crowd size exceeded Barack Obama's? If so, will Pelley use charged language when Democrats are slippery with the truth?
He has, in the past. For instance, on Nov. 14, 2013, in the midst of the furor about Obama's false and repeated claim that all Americans could keep the insurance they liked under Obamacare, Pelley led the broadcast by saying Obama was seeking to fix a "broken promise."
But it seems as though the mainstream press is more emboldened to show its true nature in the age of Trump. Whether that translates into harder-hitting journalism on politicians of all stripes seems like wishful thinking.