What is this about President Trump and Fake News?
One reviewer of my book on socialism, a German Professor of Economics, was very positive about the book, but when he read my account of the American media and of his American idol, President Obama, he was livid. I wrote about the volunteer American propaganda ministry, which performed the same functions as propaganda ministries in some other countries. This German economist, actually an acquaintance of mine, supposed I was comparing President Obama to Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda. Well, that ministry was under Hitler’s control, but I had referred to the American media as volunteering to suppress bad news about the Obama administration and to spin anything that they considered news fit to print. The effort I perceived to be uncoordinated, so there was no indictment of President Obama as managing his own news. After all, our voluntary propaganda ministry is in the private sector and worked hard to back President Obama as he would wish to be backed.
Since WikiLeaks revealed that a CNN presidential debate host leaked and coordinated the questions with the Clinton campaign, one is tempted to wonder if there really is coordination between the democrats and the media. In any case, long before the presidential campaign, the main broadcasters and numerous of the country’s main newspapers were expressing views and opinions more than just on the editorial page. The management of the news in a clearly biased manner made it apparent that the media have for some time been unreliable for those seeking news rather than opinions.
In September of 2016 it was reported that Americans’ trust and confidence in the mass media “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly” had dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history, with 32% saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. That was down eight percentage points from the previous year. In April of 2016, the Huffington Post had reported that only 6 percent say they have a “great deal of confidence in the press,” which was about the same level of trust Americans had at that point in Congress.
Socialism in contemporary America has filled the ranks of urban professionals with individuals who have been indoctrinated from an early age in school and college (see my previous blog on “Socialism and Social Learning). They have gradually adopted a conviction that their primary role is to defend good progressive principles. The notion that integrity in journalism means to bring news facts objectively to the public has long since slipped between the cracks for a small army of journalists.
European journalists have apparently been successful in thoroughly indoctrinating their public, which has precious little direct exposure, for example, to President Trump. They generally learn what they know about him from their own media, which have swallowed the American media cuisine whole. And is it any wonder that so many Americans began by being suspicious of Donald Trump, then graduated to a genuine hatred of him after he was smeared by a Clinton campaign that raised c. $1.2 billion, much of which was spent calling Trump and his supporters a “basket of deplorables”. While this was happening, the media were spending many, many millions of dollars laughing at, mocking and prevaricating about the Trump candidacy and presidency. The media attacked him so viciously that it appears they ultimately came to believe their own distortions and fabrications. One can easily see, as President Trump has averred to have seen, that current media broadcasts are full of more hatred than information.