US President Donald J. Trump has declared war against mainstream news outlets like The New York Times and CNN by ridiculing them as “fake news.”
I watch the President’s behavior on Twitter and am invested personally as a human being and professionally as a journalist.
I have been especially moved by the anonymous op-ed published in The New York Times on September 5, purportedly by an official in the Trump administration. The article, titled, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” has brought greater attention to the Trump White House, and the op-ed is said to stifle Trump’s agenda.
That editorial if true, meant that a traitor within the Trump’s administration was waging war through what I term “pull him down syndrome.”
However, apart from the fact that Trump’s officials have denied having a hand in that anonymity, Trump himself and his Vice President, Mike Pence, have described it as “gutless, false and illogical” and called newspaper “phony.”
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/832708293516632065?lang=en
Anonymous sourcing is a practice in journalism. However, many journalism experts have advised against the use of this type of sourcing in crucial matters including an editorial like this one.
The denial by Trump officials spells suspicion for propaganda on the side of The New York Times for carrying out that editorial on anonymity.
And this is where my interest really blossoms: it pricks of an instinct predicting an imminent trust meltdown in the media.
Anonymous sourcing in “Shithole” Comment
It could be recalled that in January 2018, Trump was said to have used the term “shithole” to describe some nations.
This comment got into the runways of international news and social media through anonymous sourcing.
CNN had picked the story from the Washington Post which had run the story based on anonymous sourcing – as to who informed any journalist or media outlet that Trump used such a term to describe some nations in the Oval Office. After all, no journalist was permitted to participate in the meeting at the Oval Office, so the answer to the question: from what source did Washington Post and CNN get that information thrived on anonymous sourcing.
The term had been reported to have been used by Trump to describe some nations in a derogatory way, though he has vehemently denied ever using that term or making derogatory remarks to describe any nations.
On January 11, 2018, Trump held a private meeting with Republican and Democrat Senators in the Oval Office to work on an immigration proposal.
The key issue on the table, according to a BBC report, was to agree on what to do with an Obama-administration plan that protects some 800,000 young people who entered the US illegally as children (known as the Dreamers).
But a related issue for discussion that made the alleged term “Shithole” to evolve was the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) given to a number of nationalities living in the US.
The comment caused Africa, Haiti, and El Salvador to become the sufferer of nations and the outrage it has caused since January is more of the description of the “Magic Bullet Theory” in Mass Communication.
Aljazeera reported that “Trump’s ‘shithole’ remarks spur internal anger.”
The New York Times reported that “Trump Alarms Lawmakers With Disparaging Words for Haiti and Africa.”
This global outrage forced the African Union (AU) and some African Leaders to exact their pound of flesh on Trump who drags the image of Africa in that “muddy pool.”
The unfortunate comment – whether true or false cost Trump a global jeopardy for that race hatred from such a global figure and a Presbyterian gentleman.
US media attack on Trump
In August 2018, just before the supposed anonymous New York Times sourcing outrage, over 300 media outlets in the US had launched an attack against Trump for what they call “Trump’s dirty war.”
The Boston Globe, for example, ran an editorial to claim that “Journalists Are Not The Enemy” for Trump to rescind his mantra of calling media reports in the US as “Fake News” and touting many media outlets as the “Opposition Party” and “Enemies of the People.”
However, although US media has every reason to campaign against Trump on his psychology of the media, those media outlets should try and avoid or reduce anonymous sourcing.
Trump’s anticipation of CNN, New York Times failing
Following the anonymous sourcing hysteria, Trump anticipates that CNN, the New York Times and all these “funny media” are failing – after all, almost all the media outlets in the US predicted a loss for Trump in the runup to the 2016 election. But Trump proved them wrong when he won over Hillary Clinton.
Trump recalls that the New York Times was one of the “funny” Us media outlets that covered the 2016 elections incorrectly and for the first time, the New York Times was forced to write an apology to its subscribers when Trump won.
To Trump, over four million jobs have been created since he stepped foot in the White House in 2016 and that for the past 20 years in US political history, poor people are not remaining at home, they are working and his administration creating 400,000 manufacturing jobs.
Trump is explicit that his administration has achieved “a resounding economic growth” in the last quarter and that unemployment situation in the US now is better than in 49 years to the extent that Africa-American unemployment has declined.
Indeed, doing all these in less than three years deserves fair commentary than anonymous sourcing in “funny” news which he would call “Fake” at last.
“The New York Times and CNN and all these funny media outlets will run out of business because there will be nothing to write……They don’t like Trump and I don’t like them,” said Trump on September 5, 2018.
The US media would need to sit back and redefine their news culture to avoid losing trust not only from Trump but their audiences in the US and globally as well.
Watch the many times Donald Trump has attacked the media
Joseph Kyei-Boateng is a Ghanaian journalist and communication consultant based in Norway. Read other articles by Joseph.
