What you say to me I tend to believe. In return you will
tend to believe what I tell you. Until one of us is caught in a shading of the
tale, we rely on each other’s verbal communication. When one item is found to
be not the full truth, we begin the cycle of doubt.
A couple of decades ago I encountered political talk that
was like that. A Senator or Congressman shared their account of how a law came
together in the legislative process. His account was interesting and
informative. I could see what they were attempting to do. Then a Senator or
Congressman from the opposite political party told their account of how the
discussion behind the scenes helped form the new legislation. The two accounts
were different. Not only a little but a lot.
I then began paying closer attention to what was reported
via this sort of interview on the news, and what was then printed in
newspapers; such are usually a fuller report on the details. I began to see a
pattern developing. Interviews uncovered spin on the topics under discussion.
Spin. Shadings of facts that favor one account of the happenings over another
account of the same happening. They were different.
Eventually I noticed that news casts even began to favor one
side of the spin over another. I wondered why this was so. Did the newscaster
have more information than we did?
It turned out not to be the case. Rather, the news channel
or network favored one party over the other in that particular news item, or
the network felt the topic was of special interest to them.
Soon network bias became something to watch for. We had
already learned via editorials how a newspaper’s publisher felt on some topics
and whether they were a reliable reporter for the Republican side (Chicago Tribune)
or the Democrat side (Chicago Sun Times). US News and World Report is
generally thought to be favoring conservative arguments while Time Magazine
leans toward the more liberal view on many issues.
During political campaigns one expects strongly shaded
communications; but in the news media itself?
Yes. Sad but true.
But nowhere is this more a problem than when the White House
Press Secretary is caught spinning just about every report it makes. One would
expect the Press Secretary to polish the message to help the President and his
administration look its best. But in 2017 the effort has gone so far as to be
pure propaganda.
The announcement on June 1st that the President
was withdrawing America
from the Paris Climate agreement warped the facts so much that a full analysis
of the transcript would demonstrate the length the White House would go to
shape the news. So much warp that much of the statements were fake news. From
the president himself.
Turning on the TV national news the next night we were
confronted with Putin touting how innocent Russia was of hacking the American
election of 2016. He even posited that US hackers could have done the hacking
and made it look like it was Russia .
So now the propagandist in chief is spinning even more stories to confuse the
issue.
The truth is malleable to some people. If you are an
historian, the truth is the core of your passion and academic life. Getting to
the truth is not easy, especially when so many people propagandize it to fit
their interests.
In no time at all we are consuming words meant to be taken
as truth when they are not that at all. In short order we simply don’t know who
is speaking the truth or not. Facts are funny things; if not served well and
truthfully, they have a nasty habit of popping up later to embarrass the
propagandist.
Beware America .
The truth/news/propaganda machines are working overtime these days. We don’t
know what the truth is. Only history will conclude what was factual.
But that takes many years to discern and study from the documentary record.
Meanwhile, critical decisions are being made on flimflam.
If you weren’t nervous about the future before now, perhaps
you should be?
June 6, 2017
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