We can learn from history, but by then it’s too late. November 2000, the Supreme Court, in the case of Bush v. Gore, handed the presidency to George W. Bush. The 2010 Siena poll of 238 presidential scholars found that former president George W. Bush was ranked 39th out of 43.
While former vice-president Al Gore might not have prevented the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, he might not have involved the United States in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, would certainly have taken steps to prevent, or at least moderate global warming, and reduce dependency on fossil fuels. He would not have blocked research into embryonic stem cells (important note – the cells would have been extracted from embryos that had been prepared for in vitro fertilization but would not have been implanted. These embryos would have been disposed of, but to President Bush this was too close to abortion and could not be permitted.) Embryonic stem cells continue to show great promise in medical research, but we’re decades behind where we might have been.
In 2016, we elected Donald Trump as president. It is beyond anyone’s ability to accurately describe Donald Trump. On Jan 23, 2021, the Washington Post reported “Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims as president. Nearly half came in his final year.” He was described as “Putin’s lapdog” and the evil that this man has done is already living after him. One of the worst things that Trump has done is impair confidence in the press. The ACLU has compiled a list of 30 instances where Trump attacked the press, either on an institutional basis, or just attacks on reporters, but the summation is that he called the press “the enemy of the people.”
The United States, even at the government level, had a proud record of providing reliable information, or no information at all since there remains a need for secrecy in some areas. The Voice of America, which began broadcasting in 1942, began its broadcast day with a pledge, “”Today, and every day from now on, we will be with you from America to talk about the war ... The news may be good or bad for us – We will always tell you the truth.”
There was a clear division between management and reporting, and the news broadcasts were reliable until, in 2020, President Trump appointed Michael Pack as head of the US Agency for Global Media, the parent organization for government overseas information services. Mr. Pack was a Trump loyalist who tried to make the agency reflect his own values. Mr. Pack resigned the day of President Biden’s inauguration, and the current administration has made an effort to return VOA to its roots.
With the Russian attacks on Ukraine, it has become important to distinguish news from propaganda. Russia, in contrast to objective reporting, has a long history of using propaganda to further its aims.
Although the United States has blocked a great many Russian broadcasts, because of Russian laws that prohibit reporting anything that disagrees with the Kremlin version, the Washington Post (3/12) reported, “Several major media organizations said [March 11] that they would limit activity in Russia, hours after President Vladimir Putin signed a measure into law criminalizing news coverage that accurately portrays the country’s bloody incursion into Ukraine as an “invasion.”
These included both public and private news organizations, including ABC, CNN and CBS, On March 3, the New York Times said it was temporarily removing its journalists from Russia in the wake of harsh new legislation that effectively outlaws independent reporting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
At the same time many newspapers have published articles on the ways to recognize propaganda techniques.
Fortunately, in this country we have a sufficient diversity of news sources to provide some assurance of accuracy. One of the means of assurance is independent confirmation of reports from different sources. Get the same basic news from Fox and MSNBC and its safe to assume that the facts are accurate, even if the opinions are different – although Mother Jones has reported that the Kremlin sent out talking points to state-friendly media outlets with a request: “Use more Tucker Carlson.” In Russia, the majority of the people get their news from broadcast television, which is totally state-controlled. The few private sources have shut down for fear of the laws prohibiting issuing of anything that deviates from the official line.
The profession of journalism has fallen on hard times as more newspapers close and broadcast media consolidate, but the first amendment still stands as a major protection of the accuracy of our news sources. There are things worth fighting for.
Sam Uretsky is a writer and pharmacist living in Louisville, Ky. Email sdu01@outlook.com.
From The Progressive Populist, April 15, 2022
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