This morning I was thinking about the role the media currently plays in our lives. The election of misogynist, racist, rapist, and most importantly, fascist Donald Trump is unprecedented. As a true fascist, he hates the media and has on a regular basis discredited them as a whole to his followers, but those of us who are progressive already distrusted the mainstream media because it wasn't progressive enough and catered to an increasingly right leaning power structure. This is not what Donald dislikes. He dislikes their disagreeing with his lies (read: fact checking). Yet, in a “post-fact” world, what are we to do with a fascist who is discrediting a media that we already don't trust?
The 24 hour news cycle has been pretty absurd for a while now. It's not that they purposefully report incorrectly, it's more that the structure of a 24 hour news cycle requires 24 hour news coverage. This has lead to outlets attempting to break news stories before other outlets, before there are known facts, and when this happens no matter how many retractions are put out, most people have only tuned in for the breaking coverage and therefore believe something totally false. Another problem is that the mainstream media wants to remain unbiased. There's nothing wrong with this in itself, but this means covering the conservative right, a group of people who actively promote lies in order to continue their hold of power, and the conservative left, a group of people who cater to the lies of the conservative right that allows both parties to remain powerful while pretending to be the party of the people. This is not balanced. Sure, these two groups can outwardly disagree, but at the end of the day they're both in power because of the conservative right. Further, when the topic is something like climate change, the only balanced coverage is to cover that it is real and that humans caused it. Balanced would not include promoting lies that it isn't real by the mere airtime of the other side not believing it exists.
Unfortunately, this is not why Donald does not like the media. Donald doesn't like the media because they sometimes point out how he's a liar. Or make fun of his hair. Or he just doesn't like them because he's getting the people ready to distrust the media so that he can get ready to do and say whatever he wants once President and call it Truth. According to Robert Reich, Donald has already employed the seven tactics tyrants use to control the media. Democracy Now! covered it this morning, so, do watch.
Listen, comedy shows are comedy shows, not news shows, and sometimes these comedy shows talk about the news. That doesn't mean they're news shows... right? Well, if the majority of the public doesn't trust mainstream media and gets their news from these comedy shows, perhaps these news comedy shows have a greater responsibility to the public than they would prefer to have in a perfect world.
As an active consumer of independent media, I know where to get my news. Not everyone knows or has the time to consume media the way I do. Further, not everyone has the mental health to take in the media they do consume without it being lighthearted in some way. There is, of course, Citizen Radio, but the majority of people use these comedy/news shows as their primary source of news. Therefore, comedy/news has a greater responsibility to the public. In fact, Citizen Radio talks about this in their book!
Remember how everyone got pissed at Jimmy Fallon for not just having Donald on his show, but for not taking seriously the awfulness of the person sitting in front of him? This implies that the public agrees - screw that you're a comedy show. Take the responsibility your position in the public provides you and treat this threat seriously!
I think this is what everyone was hoping for:
This was always one of or the best parts of V for Vendetta in my opinion. Basically, if you have a platform, say something important. Be brave.
The scary thing about this is that it may be coming true. Alec Baldwin may seriously have the watch his back after January 20th. In fact, unless we are very careful and act quickly, aggressively, and loudly, there may be a chance much of V for Vendetta reminds us of our current world.
Hope for the best, plan for the worst, right? We live in unprecedented times and we shouldn't be blind the the worst happening for fear of looking like a catastrophist.
