Digby Parton posted on this at Salon https://www.salon.com/2017/10/19/the-big-lie-pays-off-trump-voters-believe-fake-news-about-the-news-being-fake/ about the results of Politico’s polling showing the extent to which thepublic, and especially Trump supporters, believe the lie that the media “invents” fake news:
The poll did indeed show that 46 percent of voters believed the news media was fabricating stories about Trump. Furthermore:
Just 37 percent of voters think the media do not fabricate stories, the poll shows, while the remaining 17 percent are undecided.
More than three-quarters of Republican voters, 76 percent, think the news media invent stories about Trump and his administration, compared with only 11percent who don’t think so. Among Democrats, one-in-five think the media makeup stories, but a 65 percent majority think they do not. Forty-four percent of independent voters think the media make up stories about Trump, and 31 percent think they do not.
Among the voters who strongly approve of Trump’s job performance in the poll, 85 percent believe the media fabricate stories about the president and his administration.
So if we assume this poll is a correct reflection of the public's view on this subject, most of the people who think the media is inventing stories about Trump are Republicans and Trump supporters. That makes sense.
The fact that so many in our country believes these lies has given no pause to our journalism and pundit class; no reflection on their part as to how this fact is evidence of their failure, both as a profession and to their readers and viewers. And to our Democracy.
It seemed, for a little while, that the press was willing to push back against Trump’s baseless lies, back when Trump began his “fake news” claims. Even Chuck Todd had his panties in a wad for a show or two. But overall, there has been no fight in the Washington press corps to speak of. Worse, they have allowed Trump’s fake news to become normalized, and as Politico’s polling shows, it is a lie that now dominates in the minds of a strong majority of Republican voters.
A critical measure of the job done by our nation’s journalists is the degree to which our population is accurately informed. By any measure they have been failing. For decades. Millions of Republicans still believe the Clintons were involved in murder. The Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry were unquestioned by Republicans. 70% of the country believed Sadam was involved with 9/11. Close to ¾ of Republican voters believed Obama was not born in America and is Muslim.
The Politico poll is more evidence that the liars are winning.
The list of lies believed by a majority of voters in this country is staggering and beyond alarming, but it is no accident. It is a threat to our democracy. And, I submit, it is the product of a one-way street of lies flowing the Republican/Conservative messaging empire to an audience hungry for stories that reinforce their hatred of liberals, Democrats, immigrants, blacks, Latinos, etc.
Fake news is real, and it has been flowing from Conservatives for decades.
What has been occurring for at least the past 20 years has been Propaganda 101. Use of lies to discredit your opponents, and discredit the truth speakers, and persuading your followers to trust only that which you tell them to believe. Conservatives have been doing this for at least two generations. The effort, which is generally traced back to the Powell Memo, has been wildly successful for the wealthy individuals behind movement conservatism, and for the Republican Party that serves them. The right-wing-noise machine was created for this purpose.
But the traditional media have helped spread the lies.
For decades the national media, and in particular the Washington press corps, has been unwilling to call a lie a lie. It was always “Republicans say this and Democrats disagree”. When confronted with incontrovertible instances of egregious behavior by Republicans it has also become mandatory to create some proposed equal transgression by a Democrat, the omnipotent “both sides do it” ploy, to aid in minimizing the Republican’s actions.
Donald Trump has repeatedly accused the traditional media of being fake news, specifically inventing stories against him. Making shit up. This is the standard Conservative playbook, and it has been going on forever, what with the liberal media and all. It has always worked to the benefit of the Republicans. Complaints of bias have been effective at keeping the media on the defensive, over compensating to placate Republicans by adding more and more Conservative voices, most of whom have been able to lie with impunity as that is how the game is played. But it was never enough, and will never be enough.
The recent polling by Politico is just more confirmation of this.
In Trump’s latest case, his calling Congresswoman Wilson a liar, Trump claimed that he had PROOF. And while the media beats the drum of the controversy, including Kelly’s response, the supposed journalists are not demanding this “PROOF”. That is not how the game is played. They KNOW IT IS ANOTHER LIE. Another lie by Trump; so no story here. And they know that Trump has NO PROOF to offer, just like when he accused Obama of bugging his office and then demanded Congress and investigative bodies chase his lie to give them an air of legitimacy, while never sharing his supposed proof.
The media also understands that even when there is proof of the lie, like with his inaugural crowd size, Trump will never, ever concede he was wrong, let alone lying. So why bother. A new normal.
But surrendering to a lie, in effect, gives reinforcement to those that believe it.
America needs journalists to be watchdogs for our democracy, and a watchdog is only effective when it acts as a deterrent to the bad guys. Lying works when no price is ever paid for doing it. Cheaters win. The biggest story of the last generation has been the extent of lying by the Republican Party and their supporters on talk radio, on Fox News, in Conservative publications and in the traditional media. Main stream journalists have proven that they have no interest in policing the Conservative media, or their own profession for that matter. Quite the opposite.
Today, an American president, and the Republican Party, are engaged in a fight with democracy. Voter suppression based on lies. Legitimizing racism and discrimination. And undermining truths and facts are anathema to our democracy. Republicans have been lying about their true agenda, for decades. They have been lying about being the Party of racists. They are lying about facts. They are lying about history, about science. They are lying about Democrats. They are lying about health care and budgets. And so on. Unchecked, they will never stop lying.
Students of propaganda, or human nature for that matter, understand that if someone can be convinced to believe a lie then that person will tend to cling to the lie. And if the person has a predisposed bias or prejudice that is compatible with the lie then it is much, much harder to get them to unbelieve that lie than it was for them to accept it.
Political journalists offended by being called fake news need to first examine how it is that so many citizens in our country, persons predominantly on the Republican right (it is not both sides), trust the people that are lying to them; don’t just report the Politico poll but report on how it came to be.
The people believing these lies have been exposed to a generation or more of political journalists that have allowed Republican lies to be presented and discussed as though they had validity. Maybe it is because when Republicans were called out on their lies, those opposing voices were universally labeled as: “Democrats say...”, rather than the journalist actually confirming that, yes, they lies (see Chuck Todd, any episode). And, of course, “both sides do it” false equivalencies. These have been standard operating procedures employed religiously by a generation of political journalists which have contributed directly to the calcification of these lies within the Republican and Conservative populace.
This systemic failure within the culture of political journalism was deliberate. Whether their failure has been due to corporate directives, personal financial gain, or a desire for professional access to sources, they bear the personal responsibility for the hole they have dug for this country.
They willingly forfeited their moral and professional responsibilities to inform people of the truth.
To paraphrase from what Winston Churchill is credited with saying: Political journalists have long shown us what they are, they have only been haggling over the price. They have been participating in Fake News-lite for a long, long time. They have given us no reason to believe they have it in them to fight back against Trump, or that they really want to.
Don’t count on them to do the right thing.
American democracy is in deeper trouble than we want to admit.