The Wessex Wire

The Student News Site of West Essex Regional High School

The Wessex Wire

The Wessex Wire

Opinion: Trump’s war on facts are a danger to journalism

By Isabel Tabs ’17

Our president, Donald Trump has officially declared war: the war on media. I, Anderson Cooper and the millions of other journalists who dedicate their lives to the art are now considered by Trump as enemies of our country. This clash of opinions among Trump and the media is partially due to our president’s lack of trust in the media in parallel with news outlets having very partisan opinions.
Just minutes after Trump was inaugurated, he along with his press secretary Sean Spicer attacked the media regarding the size of the crowd at the inauguration on Jan. 20. According to the Washington Post,Spicer claimed that “this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period,” however journalists with the help of crowd scientists estimated 160,000 attended while 1.8 million people went to Obama’s in 2009.
Trump then proceeded to challenge the truthfulness of journalists by calling them “the most dishonest human beings on earth” at the CIA headquarters on Jan. 21.
Throughout his campaign process and the beginning of his prescience, Trump has continued to delegitimize the value of true journalism. The media’s role is to actively inform the public about surrounding events and topics whether in a subjective or objective form.
By simply ignoring the media and creating a barrier, Trump is changing the meaning of democracy. His continuous complaints about news coverage range from issues regarding his level of political support, his intellectual heft, and evidently the crowd size at the inauguration.
Now, we see that the press is in direct competition with the White House including all its staff members especially with Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts.” Alternative facts are just a fancy way of lying without explicitly admitting the falsehoods of the situations. The idea of alternative facts surfaced national news when Sean Spicer lied about the population size at Trump’s inauguration.
There is evidently a division between Trump and the press and as journalists, it’s our duty to decipher what the media needs to cover. Is it Trump’s rediculous claims or is it hard core policy making? But more importantly journalists need to recall events as they occurred truthfully.
In this election it was apparent that America has become polarized more than ever, which also means that the press is becoming more partisan. The press is approaching news regarding Trump as he is an opponent rather than a subject. As a result, people are losing trust in the media.
A recent poll conducted by Gallup stated that only 14 percent of the Republicans trust the media in today’s society while in 1976 trust was at an all time high percentage. This is no shock considering how biased the news is despite their personal opinions about Trump.
However the media does have the right to make accusations against Trump with free speech and freedom of the press.
It is more shocking to me though that our own president can just blatantly
misrepresent the facts as he more recently accused the media of ignoring terrorism incidents saying the “very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it.” Excuse me Mr. President, but when did the press ever try to cover up a terrorist attack and what evidence do you have to back this allegation?
As a journalist and American citizen, I recommend that Trump fact check himself before speaking in front of all America. On Feb. 3, there was a terrorist attack on Paris by someone from Egypt (which by the way isn’t one of the seven countries on his travel ban).
Being that it’s Trump, he immediately tweeted, “A new radical Islamic terrorist has just attacked in Louvre Museum in Paris. Tourists were locked down. France on edge again. GET SMART U.S.” Just a couple of things wrong with this tweet: the attack occurred in the Carrousel du Louvre, no tourists were attacked just soldiers, and France is NOT on the edge.
With all this being said, two things need to happen. First, Trump needs to hold less aggression towards the media and stop calling journalists dishonest untrustworthy people.
Because if we didn’t have the press, Trump, we wouldn’t be able to hear about your new policies (especially your travel ban). Secondly, journalists themselves need to maintain a sense of credibility because people gain insight and impressions from the media because it’s what they observe, read and listen to.
What is occurring is that Trump, a man with an exuberant amount of power and influence, is portraying the news as a deceptive and implausible outlet to the public. So bring it on Trump… our battle has just begun.

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