Of course, Nicholas Kristof is right when he asserts that the job of journalists is truth-telling, not stenography. He is properly worried that the Press fears being labelled partisan and so simply reports flagrant lies without adequately exposing their known falsity.
While this tendency of the media is troubling, what is more concerning is the conversion of some cable "news" programs into free advertising for a political candidate. Even though these programs concede that they deal in opinion rather than hard news, they surely run afoul of campaign financing regulations (what is left of them after Citizen's United) if they are , in effect, simply a continuing advertisement for a candidate. For example, Trump regularly appears on Hannity programs devoted exclusively to providing a platform for his nonfactual assertions and hate-filled messages. His interrogator acts as a cheerleader, supplying his own distorted data in support. These programs are then shown repeatedly just as though they were political ads, without cost to the Trump campaign.
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Friday, September 9, 2016
Trump and the Press
Shockingly, the media has been cowered by Trump's daily assaults upon it and by right-wing radio's constant carping about the media's alleged anti-conservative bias. Thus, stories about Trump's obvious ignorance of policy, especially foreign, and his rambling, wholly inconsistent rants about immigration, race, and taxation are reported uncritically and, when read from teleprompters, treated as bordering on presidential.
On the other hand, reporters seem to feel pressured into regularly raising faux issues about Clinton's honesty, and judgment, fueling her low ratings for transparency, likability and truthfulness. The result is the prospect of an unnervingly close election and the nightmarish possibility of a Trump presidency.
The duty of the press to be unbiased and fair does not override its essential obligation to report fully and accurately. When the emperor has no clothes, it should say so.