For the past few weeks, the credibility of the US news media was once again put to a very basic test and as expected the failure was spectacular and humiliating.
On January 29, 2019, African American actor Jussie Smollett who is gay, claimed that two masked men wearing Trump "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) red hats hurled racist and homophobic abuses at him, proceeded to punch him, pour a chemical substance over him, put a rope around his neck and berate him with "this is MAGA country". He also claimed that he had received a hate mail replete with racist invectives. Following his ordeal, Smollett did an interview with a very supportive Robin Roberts on ABC where he tearfully relived the nightmare that was his attack.
It was no surprise that the US news media went ballistic over this vile attack, branding this a hate crime by the far right and obviously blaming Donald Trump and the entire MAGA movement, as they always do. Some of the news anchors even developed a personal friendship with Smollett. Anybody who questioned this was branded racist enablers and conspiracy theorist. In addition hyperventilating news broadcasters and Hollywood celebrities, top Democrats got into the mix and so did the presidential hopefuls. Even President Trump condemned the attack.
But in a few weeks, the truth raised its ugly head to ruin the festival of Trump hate by the left. A thorough investigation by the Chicago Police proved that Smollett had staged the attack the motive was to get a pay hike in the TV series Empire. The police also said that Smollett had sent a racist letter to himself at a Fox studio. It was all a colossal hoax.
The very devious Smollett wasted precious police time and vilified an entire group of people, he also demeaned real victims of racism. It raises serious questions about the times we live in when a reasonably affluent and successful individual thinks he can bolster his profile and get salary hike with victimhood attached. Smollett still denies the charges. Fox Studio has suspended him from the series Empire.
But beyond all the toxicity of the hoax and, there are some important questions that are before the US News Media. Why didn’t anybody in the news media manage to uncover these blatant falsehoods by applying some basic journalistic practices? Why didn’t any individual who works in multimillion-dollar news organizations and who spend most of their breathing hours on trying to prove the Trump-Russia collusion and fact-checking every syllable President Trump utters do their own bit of investigating and fact check about the hoax before rushing to vilify and pontificate? The answer is that most of them wanted the story to be true because it confirms their anti-Trump bias, in some cases Trump hatred.
A new study by the Media Research Center analysed news coverage of the Trump administration on ABC, CBS and NBC’s evening news broadcasts and found that the president received astounding 90-per cent negative coverage in 2018. This means all Trump’s achievements such as a strong economy, the near defeat of ISIS in the Middle East and making the United States is a net natural gas exporter was underreported. If these achievements were under President Obama, that’s all we would hear about.
The Smollett story ran parallel to an interview by celebrated war correspondent and former CBS journalist Lara Logan where she stated that 85 per cent of US journalists are registered Democrats, that they have become political activists and even propagandists pushing a political agenda. This insider exposé should come a no surprise to anybody who watched CNN, NBC News, ABC News, MSNBC, CBS News or reads the New York Times. If Republicans are hired, they happened to belong to the cabal that despite Trump. In fact, they all sound alike, even use identical phraseology during their consistent negative, derisive and vicious reactions to any occurrences in the Trump administration.
The Smollett hoax isn’t the first time they have been caught for lack of eagerness for facts when the narrative is anti-Trump. They accused Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s pick for the US Supreme Court, of gang rape without a smidgen of evidence. Based on a 15-second clip, they branded a 16-year-old Trump supporter Covington high school student, Nick Sandmann of being a racist, harassed him, accused him of assaulting a 65-year-old activist and getting in his face. They claimed Trump had removed the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office. Finally, the biggest hoax of them all, the Trump Russia collusion story for which there has been no proof and yet countless stories have been reported for over two years based on speculation and anonymous sources. When caught, there is seldom any apology or retraction that matches the magnitude of the manner in which they carried the story. In the Smollett case, despite it being proved to be false, Trump has still been blamed for the atmosphere of hate.
Most of these news media houses have been around for decades with highly experienced and trained personnel, they do have all the journalistic standard and practises in place. Yet they suffered relentless failure in basic reporting. The main reason for this failure is a lack of diversity. Liberal activists, that comprise of most of the US media newsroom often proclaim their commitment to diversity. Unfortunately, they restrict it to the diversity of race, religion, skin colour, sexual orientation and nationality. They miss the most important diversity of them all, the diversity of thought, outlook, political affiliation and ideology. For the Smollett story, a Trump supporting reporter would have gone an extra mile to debunk it.
The people running the newsrooms are surely aware of this lack of diversity. It’s just that they no longer see their function as reporters of facts anymore. They have taken Hillary Clinton’s defeat, whom they wholeheartedly supported, personally. In their desire to undo the 2016 results and their hatred for Trump they have made it their mission to run a campaign to get him out of office or at least drive down his approval ratings to prevent his re-election. They have shunned all dissenting voices and have locked themselves in echo chambers of Trump hate. They forget that the chimes of the echo chambers that insulated them from the MAGA movement in 2016 that led to Donald Trump becoming President. Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It would not be an overstatement to suggest that some of the personnel in the US news media have been driven insane with anger and hate.
With the 2020 presidential election campaign commencing early this year, expect the media partisanship to be more shamelessly blatant and naked. A study conducted late last year by the Columbia School of Journalism inferred that most Americans do not trust their media. Hoaxes such as the Smollett story will further plummet that dwindling trust.
In a strange way, their constant attacks on Trump and his supporters have made the media sound like the boy who cried ‘Wolf!’. This has made Trump almost impervious to any harm resulting in his approval ratings being rather respectable. These attacks will also have an unintended consequence, they serve as a constant reminder to Trump and his supporters about what they are up against and nothing galvanises a movement better than a mutual opponent.
By being selective and biased about broadcasting basic information the US Media has done a great disservice to the regular people rely on the media for their information. When President Donald J. Trump frequently calls the fake news media the enemy of the people, he is not wrong.
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