Last night in Sweden…
In Canada, freedom of speech and the right to a free press are entrenched in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In the United States, these same rights are guaranteed by the First Amendment.
The media is meant to be a voice for the people; a way for the average citizen to stay informed on what is happening in their country. For those of us who aren’t political junkies, sitting at our desks for hours watching question periods and parliamentary press briefings, the news allows us to stay in the know and to make informed decisions.
But what happens when the leader of your country—and arguably the most powerful man in the world—launches a full-fledged attack against the media? What happens when he bans trusted news outlets from the briefing room and discredits journalists because they said something he didn’t like?
According to an article in The Washington Post, as of September 2016, “Public confidence in the news media hit an all-time low in the United States, especially among Republicans.”
President Donald Trump now holds the highest office in the land and, regardless of your opinion of him, this means that what comes out of his mouth has an influence on people around the world.
While it may be hard to prove concretely that President Trump’s negative rhetoric regarding the press has led to this wave of public distrust in the media, there are certainly some strong correlations.
“I have never seen more dishonest media, frankly than the political media,” President Trump said in a press conference, according to CNN.
Not only does President Trump himself attack the media’s credibility, his administrative team is known to have a few words for the press as well. According to The Washington Post, chief strategist Steve Bannon told the press to “Keep its mouth shut.”
President Trump and his team repeatedly call the media dishonest. During a press conference on Feb. 16, the president stated slightly incoherently, “The leaks are real. The leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake because so much of the news is fake.”
If the media is dishonest, is there even a word that can describe President Trump’s credibility when it comes to stating the facts?
In just over one month in office, President Trump has spewed a collection of lies that would give Pinocchio a run for his money. On. Feb. 26, The Huffington Post published an article called “The First 100 Lies: The Trump Team’s Flurry of Falsehoods.” I’m just going to share a few of my favourites.
According to The Chicago Tribune, President Trump claimed that two people were fatally shot in Chicago during Obama’s last speech as president. This is false.
At his Feb. 16 press conference, he said, “We had a very smooth roll out of the travel ban. But we had a bad court… We had a bad decision, that is the only thing that is wrong with the travel ban.”
I suppose this depends on your opinion, but a lot of us can probably agree that there’s not much truth to that.
And maybe my all-time favourite: at a Florida rally on Feb. 18, President Trump said, “You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden,” seeming to suggest that a terror attack took place in the country the night before. Even the Swedes were confused about this one.
Based on the actions and statements of the Trump administration over the past few weeks, the media is apparently the enemy of America and the enemy of democracy. But, isn’t the freedom of the press and the ability to openly critique our government part of what makes a country an effective democracy?
Many people are starting to notice similarities between President Trump’s rhetoric and several Latin American leaders, who to say the least, had some wrinkles with democracy in their countries.
The Washington Post shared these examples: “Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s former president, refused to renew the broadcast license of the country’s oldest private television network. De Kirchner’s government raided media offices on trumped-up charges of tax fraud. The current presidents of Bolivia and Ecuador sued journalists and media outlets under statutes that criminalize libel or penalize content insulting to the president.”
Is that the kind of country President Trump wants to lead?
Even former president George W. Bush—the last Republican to occupy the White House before Trump—spoke out to defend the media in a recent interview.
Bush told The Today Show’s Matt Lauer that a free press is “indispensable to democracy,” adding that “Power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive, and it’s important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power.”
As Bush so aptly stated, the media, while potentially nosey and often repetitive, help to keep our leaders accountable. It is often the media that uncovers the shady dealings and questionable behaviour of those in power.
If it weren’t for Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, we may never have discovered the full truth about the Watergate scandal of 1972.
As a writer, I consider myself to be a member of the press. As such, I like to think that we, as journalists, work for the people, not against them. But strangely enough, almost every time the press tries to hold the current U.S. administration accountable for their actions, they are barraged with accusations of dishonesty.
Let’s play devil’s advocate here for just a minute. I don’t want to sound like I’m saying a free press is the end to all the States’ problems. A free press is not the saviour of accountability 100 per cent of the time. The media can also be responsible for what I would classify as some unjustifiable perceptions of current events.
Let’s use an example from the past. When “news-network-that-shall-not-be-named” broadcasts 24/7 coverage of innocent civilians who have been injured or killed by Palestinian terrorists, of course Americans are going to demand action against them. But when the aforementioned news network only broadcasts Palestinian suicide bombers, and leaves out the footage of Israeli troops barrelling down Palestinian teenagers in the streets of the West Bank, that is where we run into a problem.
It is imperative to make sure that media is covering all sides of a story. However, these are problems that can be remedied and sometimes avoided if you know where to look for reliable, complete news.
I guess the main thing I would like readers to take away from this is: don’t believe everything you read (or hear for that matter). There’s no guarantee that the press will have all its facts straight and, as we have learned over the past five weeks, there is no guarantee that the White House is going to have all their facts straight either.
Don’t be afraid of the news, but don’t be afraid to do your own research.
Photo by Broadmark via CC0