If journalists are not going to accurately mediate politics for their audiences, what is the point of journalism?
This question is particularly pertinent when it comes to live-streamed events like the U.S. election debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Why do we need journalists to tell us what happened, when we can watch for ourselves and their analysis often defies what we can see with our own eyes?
The U.S. election debate was not just misrepresented by the usual suspects like propagandist Greg Sheridan at The Australian who distorted what really happened in the debate by calling it a ‘low quality draw’.
It was also, even more disappointingly, misrepresented by Leigh Sales at the ABC, who called Kamala Harris’ debate performance ‘fine’ and then wrote:
‘...but, Trump held his own.’
I watched the debate and it made me wonder if Sales had been watching something else. I did not see Trump “holding his own”, unless by holding his own you mean failing to provide realistic and clearly articulated policy ideas, spewing racist, hateful rhetoric about immigrants and lying constantly.
No matter what the question, Trump tried to bluster and spin his way back to attacks on immigrants while promising to ban them from America. At one point, these attacks became so unhinged that he accused immigrants of eating people’s pets.
Sales didn’t seem to notice this part, or if she did, she didn’t think it was worth mentioning. Instead, she lent false equivalency to Trump and Harris, while also clearly placing higher expectations on Harris to perform perfectly and having no standards at all about how Trump might perform. This made Sales’ piece not only meaningless but also for those who hadn’t seen the debate, a misrepresentation of reality.
There is a bigger problem in journalism like Sales’ which sanewashes Trump, legitimises him, normalises his behaviour, and walks past his constant lies and hateful racist and misogynistic abuse. Not only do journalists fail to hold Trump accountable for his behaviour, but they fail to interrogate why he behaves in this way. And it’s the “why” that should be the first thing they write about.
Let’s just say it bluntly — Trump doesn’t answer questions about policy because he doesn’t have any good answers. He doesn’t have plans. He doesn’t have positive ideas. He doesn’t have any intention of actually helping Americans. This might be worth journalists’ mentioning, considering the whole point of the Election is to consider which candidate has the policies that are going to positively influence voters’ lives. Not having any, therefore, seems to be quite the major candidate flaw.
Trump also tries to respond to every answer by attacking immigrants because he is using racism as an electoral strategy. Apparently, at the ABC you’re not even allowed to mention the ‘R’ word, even in your personal capacity, so it’s hardly surprising that journalists like Sales have been so carefully trained not to call out racism by Trump, or by anyone, really.
But whether they like to admit it or not, journalists who fail to point to the racism underscoring Trump’s immigration policies – and his obsession with talking about those policies – are contributing to the very racism that Trump is using as an electoral strategy. Those who fail to call out racism are emboldening it.
On top of a lack of policies and blatant racism, there is also the problem of Trump’s constant lies. Sales apparently thought Trump’s compulsive lying throughout the debate was not worth mentioning. By excluding mention of the lies, journalists like Sales not only fail to hold Trump accountable, but they fail to explain why Trump lies.
The cause of Trump’s lies is quite simple and is actually the reason for most lies. Most disinformation comes from the same basic motivation: the liar has lost the argument. As pointed out by Jon Stewart, Trump lies about realities that he doesn’t accept: the fact he lost the Election; the fact that he caused the 6 January insurrection which tried to bring down American democracy; the fact that his crowd sizes are smaller than Harris’; the fact he lost the debate; and so on.
This is not just a problem of Trump using lies to create his own reality – a fundamentally mendacious behaviour that makes him unfit to be president of his local book club let alone president of the United States – but it also bellies a bigger truth. Trump lies because he doesn’t have good answers to anyone’s questions.
Trump isn’t an intelligent person. He doesn’t have people’s best interests at heart, lacks empathy and charisma, doesn’t have positive solutions to America’s problems and has no plan for how to fix anything. All he has are lies and divisive hatred to manipulate people into supporting him.
If he wins back power, we know from the last time he was president that all he plans to do is work to benefit himself and other billionaires like him. We all saw what happened last time, yet most journalists don’t seem to want to talk about it.
Journalists’ most important job in a democracy is to represent reality to the best of their ability to give voters information that helps them make decisions in their best interests. If journalists like Sales are not brave enough to tell their audiences the truth about Trump, then they should step away from their powerful mass media platform and let someone else do it.
Dr Victoria Fielding is an Independent Australia columnist. You can follow Victoria on Twitter @DrVicFielding.
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