Watching the initial
press conferences of the Administration of United States President Donald
Trump, it is easy to see the unique challenges for journalists as they attempt
to cover the White House over the next few years.
Never before have
they had to deal with being openly and brazenly lied to; never have they faced situations
where they are told that black equals white and every colour in between.
This became all too
clear during the harangue handed out by Trump’s new Press Secretary, Sean
Spicer over the media’s coverage of the inauguration, accusing journalists of
deliberately using pictures that made it seem there was a low public attendance
at the ceremonies when in fact he claimed they were the best attended, most watched
in presidential history — in Washington, the rest of the US and around the
world.
After then accusing
the press of making up attendance figures because no attendances had been
released, he then offered a string of ‘official’ figures comparing Trump’s
inauguration with that of the swearing in ceremony at former President Barack
Obama’s second term in 2013.
That the media can cope
with — the inaugurations of second term presidents are rarely as well attended
as their first — it’s a twisting of the figures to suit an argument that can
easily be rebuffed. But how to handle the outright, straight-faced porky that
this was the biggest, most magnificent show Washington had ever seen without
degenerating into a ‘yes it is – no it isn’t’ squabble that benefits no one?
Director of the
Ethical Journalism Network, Aidan White says that journalism is facing a crisis
with the rise of racism, misinformation and political propaganda that were
features of the US Presidential campaign and the British vote to leave the
European Union.
However, he remains
optimistic that “although there may be more rumour, speculation, fake news and
misinformation as the information market moves online, there is a growing
movement to strengthen the craft of journalism”.
That is fine as long
as there are people still prepared to listen and watch, but what if the genuine
practitioners of ethical journalism are buried under a flood of State sponsored
propaganda and falsehoods? Social media has given governments the platforms
they need to by-pass traditional journalism, and if governments turn rogue with
all the resources they have at their disposal, what can individuals do against
them?
Perhaps one of the
most worrying developments in the past few days is the threat that the White
House Press Corps be relocated to a larger venue where more journalists,
bloggers and tweeters could also be accommodated.
No doubt the Trump
people would claim that they were democratising Administration coverage, taking
it away from a small, exclusive elite and opening it to a wider selection of
media more relevant to today’s world. In fact it would be a very effective
muddying of the waters, further confusing the public about who and what to
believe.
Facing what one
member of the Press Corps called “a hellscape of lies and distorted realities”,
the only hope is for professional journalists to close ranks — the early signs
are not good.
When Trump used a
press conference to accuse CNN of publishing fake news and refused to take a
question from its representative who was then threatened with eviction, no
colleagues came to his aid. A mass walk-out might have been effective, but it
did not happen.
This was a victory
over the free press that President Vladimir Putin of Russia would have
applauded: Isolate your critics, reward those who promise to be compliant.
Despite some signs
of disquiet, Trump can probably count on both Houses of a Republican-dominated
Congress to go along with the new Washington regime. He will quickly ensure a
majority of like-minded judges in the Supreme Court.
For ethical,
professional journalists determined to seek out and report good old-fashioned
truth, the capital is going to be a lonely, even hostile place.
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