Welcome to the information crisis

Now that much of the media has given up the role of referee and suited up to play in the arena, it's clear -- with the recent barrage of what the left considers major scoops and the right dismisses as "fake news" -- that the objective of this game is to destroy Trump.

Which is poetic given that it was the media who helped create Trump. Remember when Ted Cruz attacked Trump for having "New York values" during the Republican primary, and the New York-based media annihilated Cruz?

Now it seems like half the country can't stand the other half. Many conservatives think that Trump is doing fine and the media are terribly unfair. Many liberals think that Trump is terribly unqualified and the media are doing great.

And yet, I believe there is a third group of Americans who think that both Trump and the media are behaving horribly, that their attacks on one another have become less rational and more emotional. When a guest recently questioned a newspaper story based on the accounts of anonymous individuals, CNN host Kate Bolduan wagged her finger, yelled at him, and accused him of "attacking sources."

This group doesn't care for Trump, yet they find the media's breathless coverage of this White House unappealing and unwatchable. The more time they spend watching cable news, the more confused they get. They don't know what to believe, or whom to trust.

So they're tuning out. They're not paying attention to political news anymore.

"Sick and tired! It's gotten to where I don't trust any news," says one Facebook friend.

"I change it to the news after it's been on for 10 minutes. The first 10 minutes are reserved for partisan non-news," says another.

A liberal friend who was raised in New York and didn't vote for Trump told me she no longer watches the news. It doesn't seem honest, she said. To her, it's just noise.

We've heard that America is facing a "constitutional crisis" because Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. We've been warned of a "national security crisis" because Trump allegedly shared sensitive intelligence with the Russians.

But the media are missing the biggest story of all. Because of their excesses, and their feverish feud with the White House, there seems to be a growing number of Americans who don't care what either side has to say.

Our country is suffering through an information crisis.

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Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com.