Trump Has Laid a Trap for The News Media
TheDailyBell.com
January 30, 2017
Journalists Look Awkward in the ‘Opposition Party’ … The opening days of Donald Trump’s presidency are forcing the traditional news media to choose between squarely reporting on the president and more directly challenging him when he makes statements that are demonstrably false. The strategic choice between a watchdog mission and an active opposition must be made mindfully. Otherwise the media will find itself tacking back and forth between objectivity and persuasion, an approach that could squander both aims.
This article makes the point that Donald Trump is forcing mainstream media to choose between reporting on the president without overt bias or challenging him when he says something they believe is false.
The media to a degree has been focusing on challenging Trump. But this involves making determinations that go beyond objectivity. This is something that Trump seemingly understands. Either he is a liar or those commenting on his positions are going to be represented fairly straightforwardly.
By presenting his facts his way, Trump is giving the mainstream media an unpalatable choice. Either it abandons its so-called objectivity, or it lets Trump make his points as he wishes to.
More:
In American political culture, paradoxically, calling someone a liar doesn’t make it sound like you’re the truth-teller. It makes it sound like you’re engaged in a debate.
Of course, should the traditional media choose to go back and reassert its objectivity, that strategy has limits as well. It’s naive to believe that the Trump-supporting public will accept the newspapers’ version of objective truth in the face of Trump’s repeatedly asserted views. The president’s supporters will embrace their version of facts — “alternative facts,” as Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway unforgettably put it.
This is something we have noticed ourselves. Newspapers in particular are becoming more and more opinionated. It has everything to do with Trump.
There is nothing wrong with opinionated media. Opinionated media’s heyday was actually pre-Civil War when everything was relatively opinionated. Publications had points of view and these points of view were reflected in every part of the paper.
The Rest…HERE
