The great scapegoat
Finally, we know who is solely responsible for Trumps election. It’s the Russians! Not only that, it’s also an attack on the United States, a terrorist attack!
It is not a new revelation coming to light after the presidential election, rather a confirmation that the leaked DNC emails published by WikiLeaks were acquired by a Russian hacker. The leaked information did undoubtedly damage the public image of the Democratic National Committtee as well as Hillary Clinton, including many people from her staff, and subsequently negatively influenced her presidential campaign. The hackers also acquired plenty of information regarding the Republican National Committee but chose not to publish this information, causing only harm to the Democratic campaign.
Now, a few days later, Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, a backer of the Remain campaign, claims that he thinks that Russian interference is partly responsible for the result that a majority voted ‘Leave’. Bradshaw makes this bold claim despite being unable to provide any evidence that Russia did interfere in the referendum.
And it doesn’t end there, this vague threat of Russia meddling in foreign politics and especially elections is fueled by governments, politicians and subsequently the media. Across Europe the established politicians experience loss of trust of their voters in their party and a shift of votes to other, newer or more extreme parties. It seems almost like a precautionary measure to find a scapegoat for future election results. Facebook is responsible for fake news? Yesterday’s news! Now the Russians are the culprits!
I’m not saying that news outlets should stop reporting these news, the DNC leaks were important and contained valuable information and certainly of public interest. The problem is that the news outlets keep fueling this smoldering fire. They are reporting every bit of information that fits into the scheme of bad, interfering Russia, regardless of the state of evidence. The news outlets are content to appear like propaganda outlets. If it’s about fear and hate, people will read it, no matter what it is ultimately about.
It is a slippery slope and media outlets should be cautious that their reporting does not become more and more one sided. We have already seen how this might be a problem if we take a look at the way the Russian intervention in Aleppo/Syria is being reported in contrast to the US intervention in Mosul/Iraq.
(Disclaimer: This article is not supportive of the actions of the Russian government, it is merely meant to be a reminder that reporting should be balanced and critical.)
