The Conversation We’re Not Part Of
The day after former FBI Director Comey’s congressional testimony, The New York Times reports: “Comey Says Trump Tried to Derail Inquiry”, and The Washington Post reports: “Comey testimony threatens to deepen political crisis engulfing White House”. The Gateway Pundit’s headline is: “COMEY ADMITS DEM CORRUPTION”. It’s a vivid illustration (this Washington Post article has more examples of the pro-Trump coverage) of the fact that there are two completely different conversations going on in our country.
More and more Americans are acknowledging the urgent threats Trump’s presidency poses to all of us and to our democratic institutions.
But there are millions of fellow citizens who don’t acknowledge these threats. They see no problem with this president. As they see it, the problem is with us, his detractors and accusers. They are not involved in our conversation. They are involved in a completely different conversation, and they see a completely different reality.
There is not one simple explanation of how we got to this point. But surely a big part of it is the fact that millions of Americans get their information from different sources than we do. They rely not on the fallible but largely credible and professional news sources that inform our own conversations, but on what can best be described as anti-rational news providers.
A few months ago two members of our Free Press Group, part of the Brooklyn, NY activist organization GetOrganizedBK, met with NYU Journalism professor and media critic Jay Rosen. We asked him: what is the single most important thing the public needs to know? He answered: the orchestrated campaign to assassinate the legitimate press. It’s a campaign that has been in the making for 50 years. It has been remarkably effective. Rosen said: “We’ve lost 20–30% of the electorate, and we will not get them back”.
Fox News is neither the beginning nor the culmination of this campaign, but it is certainly a high water mark. Tobin Smith’s insider account of what has been going on behind the scenes at Fox News is illuminating. “By careful design and staging Fox News manipulated (and ultimately addicted) the most vulnerable people in America to the most powerful drug cocktail ever: Visceral gut feelings of existential outrage relieved by the most powerful emotions of all . . . the thrill of your tribe’s victory over its enemy and the ultimate triumph of good over evil.” The staged gladiatorial-like rhetorical fight to the death the Fox viewer loves to watch are ALWAYS fixed by the show producers for the conservative actor to win…always.”
Many have traced the campaign back to a document known as “The Powell Memo”.
“In August of 1971 Lewis Powell wrote a confidential memo for the US Chamber of Commerce which outlined the scope of the problem and stated specifically what needed to be done to combat it. Titled “Attack on American Free Enterprise System” this document would be taken up by business as a manifesto. Every one of Powell’s recommendations would eventually be enacted and expanded, and would create the world we find ourselves in today”. — Seattle Star — While We Were Sleeping: The Powell Memorandum
Also see: The Powell Memo: A Call-to-Arms for Corporations Reclaim Democracy — The Powell Memo
The decades that followed saw the creation of “think tanks” like The Media Research Center, Accuracy in Media, and David Horowitz’ Discover The Networks. All have been well-financed efforts dedicated to undermining an independent and objective press and supplanting it with propaganda. The Atlantic article “The Conservative War on Liberal Media Has a Long History” tells more of the story.
The rise of cable and the internet took away the FCC’s authority to ensure standards of fairness, since there were no longer a finite number of outlets limited by access to the public airwaves. This opened up new opportunities for communicating independent viewpoints of all stripes. But the players most ready and eager to aggressively seize the moment were the well-financed pro-business right wing. A vacuum left by declining local newspapers and community based radio stations was quickly filled by nationally syndicated talk radio personalities like Rush Limbaugh. And the rise of cable TV paved the way for Roger Ailes’ Fox News.
The power this campaign has over real human beings wasn’t fully brought home to me until I watched the 2016 documentary film: “The Brainwashing of My Dad”. You can see the trailer here, and the full film here.
The film is centered on the filmmaker’s attempts to cope with the radical personality change she saw her father undergo when he became addicted to right wing talk radio and Fox news. She folds in the stories of others who have faced similar struggles within their own families. She helpfully ties it back to the history I’ve just alluded to, yet the film’s strength is helping you see the phenomenon in human terms, and to see that “brainwashing” is not an exaggeration. You see how exposure to these outlets creates an addiction to anger. Her pain and confusion at her father’s transformation from a kind, tolerant man into a rabid, hate-filled one is heart wrenching.
This propaganda campaign has grown many branches in the years since, accelerated by online algorithms and the rise of social media. You can get a sense of the extent of it in these articles drawn from our ever-growing Free Press Group Resource Guide:
Breitbart-led right-wing media ecosystem altered broader media agenda — Columbia Journalism Review
The Right Is Building A New Media “Upside Down” To Tell Trump’s Story — Buzzfeed
‘We’re living in the world Breitbart created now’ — Columbia Journalism Review
THE RECLUSIVE HEDGE-FUND TYCOON BEHIND THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY — How Robert Mercer exploited America’s populist insurgency.- The New Yorker
Sinclair Requires TV Stations to Air Segments That Tilt to the Right — New York Times
We tracked the Trump scandals on right-wing news sites. Here’s how they covered it.- 5/18/2017 –Vox -
Wikipedia Article on Fake News Websites
Real News About Fake News — weekly roundup of developments in understanding fake news — Nieman Lab
The Right’s ‘Big Lie’ Strategy: When Losing, Simply Rewrite History — Alternet
NEARLY HALF OF DONALD TRUMP’S TWITTER FOLLOWERS ARE FAKE ACCOUNTS AND BOTS — Newsweek
Data and Society — Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online
As a conservative Twitter user sleeps, his account is hard at work — Washington Post
TROLLS FOR TRUMP — Meet Mike Cernovich, the meme mastermind of the alt-right. — The New Yorker
Of course it’s essential that we continue having thoughtful, rational, informed discussions about the real threats and challenges we face, and how we can respond to them, politically and otherwise. And there is plenty of work we can do to defend and support a press that’s under attack, and to hold it accountable to be more independent, transparent, and courageous. But it’s important to keep in mind the millions of citizens who are not part of these discussions, yet who have a disproportionate influence over our politics and our public discourse.
Joined by millions of bots, they swell the ranks of Trump’s Twitter followers, and, along with angry trolls, clog online comments sections with poisonous invective and lies. They are the constituents in gerrymandered districts who keep congressional representatives living in fear of being replaced by challengers with even more extreme right wing views.
Is Jay Rosen right, that “we will not get them back”? Is our only course of action engaging in a political fight against the influence of those of our fellow citizens who are influenced by this propaganda machine?
Doing more requires us to commit to two very challenging projects.
One: figuring out how to have a conversation with some of these people. One that will be different than the different conversations we and they are now engaged in. It would mean attempting to directly engage them, to understand them, and find ways to get them to look critically at their sources of information, and to be open to exploring more credible sources. Anyone who has engaged in an online discussion or tried talking with relatives immersed in Fox News or Rush Limbaugh (or Drudge, Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, Infowars, etc., etc.) knows how discouraging and exhausting this can be. (See “Going Outside Your News Bubble” in the Resource Guide)
The other route is to go after the suppliers. There are ongoing efforts to improve search engine and social media algorithms, and create fact-checking and fraud-reporting mechanisms. There are campaigns to boycott and pressure companies that advertise on sites that promote fraudulent and hate-filled content. (See “Ways of Countering Fake News” in The Resource Guide). And there are efforts to promote media literacy education in schools that might reach the next generation.
In the meantime, as we continue discussing and debating among ourselves how to respond to the threats we’re confronting, we need to stay aware that out of our earshot, this orchestrated flood of disinformation continues to wash over millions of people we share this country with.
