A few weeks ago, Stephen Colbert was up in arms over the President’s dismissal of CBS anchor John Dickerson – whom the President referred to as “Fake News” and then dismissed entirely when Dickerson questioned the president’s source for claims that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower.
To a lot of people on the coasts, this seems laughable and shocking that a president could be so dismissive of mainstream media while making completely unfounded claims of his own. Nonetheless, it resonates with millions of people throughout most of the Midwest (an area bereft of major broadcast journalists).
Donald Trump definitely has made heavy use of “alternative facts”, but the backlash the mainstream media has used to counter (perhaps in defense of their own credibility) has only served to give weight to his assertions. A look at the CNN homepage for the past two months yields a full transcript of SNL’s best digs on the White House- despite no affiliation between CNN and SNL parent NBC. I counted three articles a few weekends ago that discussed anecdotal information that various Republican congressmen didn’t know before sending the partial repeal of Obamacare to the Senate this week, and yet there wasn’t an article outlining the bill’s full content in even terms. The closest two articles to an overview of the bill on CNN as I wrote this were “Pre Existing Conditions: Pregnancy, Sleep Apnea Could Make You Pay More” and “Here’s a (Partial) List of All the Pre-Existing Conditions the GOP Bill May Not Cover”. There’s no real up front mention of savings, what’s protected, or that this is a starter version of the bill sent to the Senate. There isn’t much of an overview at all. I wonder how any independent person could come to any sort of conclusion at all about the healthcare bill from reading CNN, or even understand fully what it is (rather than a few anecdotal things that it isn’t).
One of the largest reasons the President’s “Fake News” message resonated so well as President Elect was the very surprise that he had won the election at all. For many in the Midwest, talking to their neighbors and friends, it seemed clear Donald Trump was doing well in their own polls of peers. Many in the Midwest looked around and could see clearly that he was winning in their district weeks ahead of the election despite poll numbers on major news networks showing different outcomes- particularly in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin. The fact that the polls misrepresented the actual vote gave many people grounds to distrust many of the major news networks as making any effort to present balanced facts – or even facts at all.
That may well have been bad polling. In any regard, it’s given the President an opportunity to confuse the American people as to where to look for the truth, and it does appear that many of the networks – perhaps through attacking the President in response to criticism aimed at the networks – have played fully into his hands.
165 days are over, but there are 1,295 more to go. The public probably would appreciate journalism that starts with facts and overviews. When everyone is yelling and pointing fingers, everyone is just noise, and if that’s how the next few years go- it’ll be the media and not the White House who will lose this war of words.