Corrupt News

Jesse Beard

jb071416@ohio.edu

Christopher Weyant, The Boston Globe, Copyright 2017 Cagle Cartoons, Retrieved from: https://theweek.com/cartoons/793315/political-cartoon-trump-google-fake-news-media-lies-twitter

Since joining the political arena, Donald Trump has been a big proponent of 'whataboutism' with unfortunately successful results. Whataboutism, as described by CNN's Jim Dougherty, essentially asks, "who are you to call the kettle black," and challenges the credibility of anyone who questions your own. Ironically, the origin of this practice was in Soviet Union propaganda and it is still a favorite of the Russian government. It was, not surprisingly, one of Trump's campaigning tactics, using the majority of his time to attack his opponents rather than to promote his own ideas. This is very concerning as it does nothing but harm the discussion, it is not a part of a healthy dialogue. By invoking this so often, he is only obscuring the clarity of the truth until everyone is bad and everything is subjective. The media has seemed to take the hardest hit on this front, as he is using it to delegitimize the credibility that these publications had previously relied upon to set them apart. Just last week he addressed a question about the impeachment proceedings by denouncing the reporter as, not only 'fake news', but also doubled down calling them 'corrupt news' as well, stating: 

"I call the fake news now, 'corrupt news.' Because 'fake' isn't tough enough, and I'm the one that came up with them -- I'm very proud of it -- but I think I'm going to switch it largely to "corrupt news. " Because the media in this country -- not everybody; we have some great reporters, some great journalists. But much of it is corrupt. It's corrupt. You have corrupt media in this country. And it truly is the enemy of the people."

As if the term 'fake news' has not been harmful enough to our media, there is now another level referred to by our president as the 'corrupt news'. He is also purposefully vague when referring to who is 'fake news' and who is real, with the only indication being whether or not they are critical of his presidency. This allows his followers the freedom to pick and choose which sources they deem credible based on their opinion rather than the facts presented to them. 

In this era of the internet, there is more information available to the average person than ever before. The amount of content is so large that it is impossible to wade through all of it. This encourages competition between these sources, often in unfair ways. To break through the sea of text, many less credible sources rely on sensationalism and other unethical practices. As many people get their news strictly through social media it is also being simplified and targeted towards users so they have even less choice and variety with concern to the news they consume. 

This system is reminiscent of a Miltonian "marketplace of ideas," as there is so much information being constantly transmitted. The only problem is that we have not begun at a level playing field, instead, we have major powers directing the public towards the ideas that they deem correct. This essentially circumvents the whole democratic nature of the system. This whole system could be represented today by Twitter, essentially our biggest "marketplace of ideas," and a favorite of our president. While Twitter has rules about speech, so does our constitution, having several exceptions to the first amendment. While everyone may have the same level of opportunity when making an account, some people have a larger following due to outside forces. These accounts will hold more impact as they reach a wider base and will continue to find more followers. While it may not be acknowledged, Twitter also favors the ideas held by these people, most notably in their alleged discrepancies in punishment between hate speech targeted at white people compared to that coming from right-wing personalities such as Alex Jones. 

Looking at examples such as these helps to understand why the younger left-wing crowd is moving away from the idea of a Miltonian "marketplace of ideas," instead opting to give more influence to those that were previously deprived of it. It used to be that those who were more liberal were more likely to be a proponent of free speech, no matter the content. However, these stances have flipped recently, with the left becoming increasingly intolerant of hate speech and attempting to even the playing field by bolstering the position of people whose voices were under-represented in the previous marketplace. 

I believe it is this gap in how the two sides view the access to information that is contributing to our increasingly divisive political world, as we are simply 'trolling' the other side back and forth until we forget where we started. While it may be enticing to disparage those whose opinions run counter to your own, it is doing nothing but increasing contempt and muddying the waters of the truth.