Media Fail

Every international friend I have has asked the same question:  "the US isn't dumb enough to elect Donald Trump, are they?"  I say no, and on this election eve, I stand by my prediction, but my wife did ask why they keep asking in such a dire tone, like they're begging for a loved one to not be sacrificed.  The answer is simple.  Media outside of the United States has actually covered the Donald Trump campaign as journalists should, rather than the US's clearly broken to the core 4th Estate.

No one exemplifies this dichotomy better than the Washington DC correspondent for the Toronto Star, Daniel Dale.  By doing a Journalism 101 basic, fact checking the statements coming out of Donald Trump's face, something the US news media doesn't do nearly as competently as Mr. Dale, you get a real gauge of who Trump is.  He usually generates between 10 and 40 lies, PER DAY!  Compare that to how the current Vice President, Joe Biden, had his 1988 Presidential run torpedoed by some mild plagiarism and a few lies about his school days, very timid stuff comparatively.  Contrasting the reporting done by Dale and many other foreign reporters, to what US citizens see, hear and read, you can only come up with one conclusion; our news media has failed horrifically.

The US news media knows scrutinizing Trump at the level they've scrutinized past Presidential candidates would've made this election a blow out by August 1st.  Instead, they took the path of glossing over Trump's character flaws, comments and behavior just to keep him a viable product on the national stage.  Trump's constant disqualifying lies aside, his extremely questionable business partners and financial mismanagement, his wife openly plagiarizing Michelle Obama (forgot about that one, didn't you?), his clear and disturbing connections to Russia and Vladimir Putin, his campaign working with rogue FBI agents to sway the election, his insistence he'll jail his opponent, his insinuating he'll ignore the results of the election, his numerous sexual assault accusations, his bragging about grabbing women by the 'P,' and the allegation he raped a 13 year old should've driven him from the race, but instead, the news media, even IF they mentioned Trump's indiscretions, shrugged their collective shoulders and moved on.  

Some news media personalities have tried to talk about Trump as a presidential candidate, but they're quickly shouted down.  Van Jones tried to critique Trump's insane policy points from the 3rd presidential debate, but was swarmed by milquetoast pundits, reporters and commentators, who brushed off Jones' very valid points as nothing more than 'Trump being Trump,' like it's a catchphrase.  Trump says something which should remove him from Presidential consideration, and the media treats it like it's Fonzie saying 'Sit on it,' or JJ Walker's 'Dyno-mite,' or Robo-Cop's, 'I'd buy that for a dollar!'

International media isn't trying to tilt the playing field to make Trump viable, so their reporting (the reporting my international friends see, hear and read) actually covers the real Trump, without trying to whitewash (pun intended) his faults.  Why is American news media so broken on this?  Could be they feel an obligation to the GOP, one of the two major parties in the US, to make their candidate seem legit.  Could be the media has been completely corrupted by conservative elements.  Could be they just wanted better ratings and a better story than Cruz, Bush or Rubio could deliver.  Could be they're controlled by their profit margins, so to ensure obscene campaign spending until November 8th, they purposely made this seem like an evenly matched contest.  Could be a little bit of 'all of the above.'

In the unlikely scenario that Trump wins, and the inevitable disaster consumes the United States (and that's not an exaggeration.  A Trump Presidency would damage this country to the core on many levels) there's a real fault to be laid at the feet of American news media.  The most die hard Trump fans will always swoon over the man, but the Reagan Republicans and moderate Republicans who've blindly supported him would start to come to grips with what they've done.  Their first excuse will be, "the Democrats were the bad guys for placing Hillary on top of the ticket.  If the Dems hadn't forced us down the dark road of Trump, we would've never picked him."  That's a bull crap defense, as the GOP had plenty of far less toxic candidates to choose from.  Somewhere down deep inside of the Republican voter, they wanted the nastiest politician available, so they steered themselves, intentionally or unintentionally, towards Trump Harbor!  Ironically, if Jeb or Kasich were the nominee, I think they'd probably be winning.

But if Trump does win, there will always be this hypothetical question:  if the news media would've just reported on Trump with half the vigor they usually use on Presidential candidates, would enough GOP voters have come to the same conclusion as the vast majority of the globe, that Trump's not worthy of the office?  They likely would've voted for someone else, saving the country, and the world, from a Trump reign.  The US's news media owes it to the American public to do their job, and in the case of Donald Trump, they've outright refused to do it.

The US news media already has their excuses ready to go in case of a Trump victory.  They'll insist they did cover all of Trump's scandals and lies, when they didn't. They'll insist they warned the American people of the dangers of Trump, but the American people ignored their reporting.  That also is a lie.  They'll insist they gave the same due diligence as Daniel Dale at the Toronto Star did.  That's laughable.  Daniel Dale is just doing Journalism 101 effectively, and most American reporters are not worthy of carrying his notepad.  The American media will scream, "it's not our fault."  It's not entirely your fault, but you played a major role.

The last time the American news media was anywhere close to this reckless was with the Iraq War.  Even though American news media insists they questioned the motivations of the W. Bush Administration back then, they didn't.  They were either pandering to the Administration in an attempt to get access and exclusives, or they were too afraid to do their job.  Regardless, it lead to an unGodly mess, which in hindsight shows us we need a 4th Estate to act as a dissenting opinion, asking the questions the American people can't; the questions the news media knows they should ask, but, in the case of the Iraq War, refused.  Here's hoping tomorrow we avoid another American news media catastrophic failure, one which would make the Iraq War seem quaint.