The White House is being remade in Donald Trump’s image, and that includes the makeup of the press corps. That doesn’t mean reporters are getting bathrobes and gold plated pens; it means fringe, conspiracy-peddling publications are getting seats next to the nation’s traditional, and formerly trusted, news outlets.
This week the administration’s communications department granted press credentials to the Gateway Pundit – a rabid, conspiracy-driven pro-Trump blog. The publication labels the New York Times a “provocative liberal blog”. They also have run stories with headlines such as “France is under siege because of the Muslim invasion” and “Nazi Collaborator, Democrat Donor and Billionaire George Soros Behind (Past and) Latest Protests”.
Their inclusion in the White House press corps is another troubling trend from this White House, which has labeled any criticism of the president or negative polls as “fake news”.
Conservative radio superstar Laura Ingraham’s website, Lifezette, which no reasonable person takes seriously because they peddle myths about the Clintons having people murdered, was recently granted the coveted first question at a press briefing.
And former Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon has been staffing up the West Wing with alumni from the “alt-right” site including Julia Hahn, who seems to have a vendetta against House speaker Paul Ryan, and Sebastian Gorka, who has said 80% of White House reporting is “fallacious”.
This takes the relationship between the press and the White House to a new low. The conservative movement has long had an axe to grind with the nation’s traditional press corps. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich was arguably the father of the anti-journalist movement when he rose to power in the 1990s by painting the mainstream media as being tainted with a perverse liberal bias. But his orphan baby is now running amok in the White House and is undermining public trust in facts.
The president has labeled the media “the opposition party”, and the administration’s disdain for truthful reporting has been repeatedly on display since he took the oath of office.
Remember what seems like ages ago when Trump paraded his press secretary, Sean Spicer, out on his first Saturday in office to lie about the inauguration crowd size? Those “alternative facts”, as Kellyanne Conway infamously put it, have now given way to a __more troubling alternative – an alternative White House universe where blind loyalty has become the only reality that matters.
This weekend it was White House policy adviser Stephen Miller’s turn to mislead the public. With a deadpan face, he claimed massive voter fraud occurred in the election without even attempting to offer any of those pesky little facts to back him up.
The new administration also scrubbed many agency websites and social media accounts of any posts about climate change sciences – also known as hard-to-swallow facts. And this weekend the president’s staff also put black garbage bags on the windows of the pen where he placed the press at his private resort Mar-o-Lago just hours before administration officials conducted sensitive security planning in the view of the club’s private guests.
It’s in this atmosphere that Republicans on Capitol Hill are refusing to investigate now former national security adviser Michael Flynn for allegedly collaborating with Russia and lying to Vice-President Mike Pence about it. But they do want to investigate who leaked the unsettling conversations. Why would they want to punish the federal worker who set the gears in motion for Flynn’s quick departure? Because for the Republicans it’s all about narrative; facts no longer matter.
This is why the addition of rightwing blogs which promote conspiracy theories is so unsettling. The administration doesn’t want to deal with reality. Instead they want to slowly and methodically change the American public’s perception of reality.
The nation is at a troubling crossroads, as people are being spoon-fed a false binary between “fake news” and real news, which is also known as just news.
News is the portrayal of events that happened, words that were spoken and data that can be quantified. The only other option in the realm of journalism can only be described as lies, falsehoods, myths or misleading tales. This is also called propaganda when it’s employed by a government to promote its policies.
All good journalism involves skepticism. The president has surrounded himself by senior aides who don’t dare question him or show him data that diverges with his limited worldview, which is why a free, independent press corps is vital. Not one that carries the water for a president and new administration that are largely learning on the job.
The public doesn’t know who to trust, and when publications with a seat in the White House unquestionably push out falsehoods from White House officials on issues like voter fraud, it only further confuses an already confused and hyper-partisan public further.
The perpetual effort to delegitimize the press corps will have lasting effects on the republic. Coupled with the White House promoting conspiracy theorist peddling bloggers leaves the public two options: believe the news, or believe the propaganda.