Media War Against Trump: Time For Rapprochement

There is a new lexicon in politics and media in the United States and indeed the world. It is called, Fake News. Thanks to United States President, Donald Trump, even Nigeria’s political elite has caught the bug.

Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said recently that the threat posed by the fake news phenomenon is greater than that posed by insurgency and militancy, hence the need for the military to strategise on how to counter it with the same vigour with which it confronted Boko Haram. Boko Haram is a terrorist group operating majorly on the North East of Nigeria.
The Minister stated this in Abuja on Tuesday at the 7th National Security Seminar of the Alumni Association of the National Defence College.
“I see a greater threat to Nigeria and the threat is greater than insurgency and militancy, and that is fake news. I think anybody who is a student of history or military history will agree with me that no war has ever been started by bullets or bows and arrows. Every war has been started by words. This phenomenon of fake news is a serious issue and I think the Armed Forces should also pay a great attention to it,”' he said.
Alhaji Mohammed urged the military to devise a robust communication strategy and deploy more and capable personnel to the Social Media to wage a cyber warfare against fake news.
“This is why I believe that whatever we do today in fighting terrorism and insurgency, we must pay adequate attention to communication strategy. We must have our people who will be very active also on the Social Media,” he said.

According to Wikipedia, fake news “is a type of hoax  or deliberate spread of misinformation  be it via the traditional news media  or via social media  with the intent to mislead in order to gain financially or politically.  It often employs eye-catching headlines or entirely fabricated news-stories in order to increase readership and online sharing.” 

While fake news has been in existence for a very long time, not much was made of it until Donald Trump.  

The mainstream media played into Trump’s hands by their biased reportage of the events leading to the United States presidential election last year. Many of the liberal news media from Washington Post, New York Times and CNN among others were spinning lies upon lies to show that the Democratic Party candidate, Hillary Clinton would win. Many of these were absolute lies. Not even one of the presidential debates could these news mediums acknowledge that Trump won. In fact they regale the world on why Trump was unelectable. Listening or reading them and their hugely partisan columnists and pundits, you would be pardoned to suggest that there was no need for the election, just inaugurate Hillary Clinton as the president.

While the CNN and co. was busy spreading their jaundiced news, the people that matter, the American people who Trump’s message was resonating with were getting set to precipitate the most unprecedented knock out of the American establishment. It was a bemused and utterly embarrassed so-called main stream media that received the shock of Trump’s victory at the presidential election. Trump by his victory did not only embarrass the establishment and their media backers, he embarrassed the Polling Industry, that would never be the same again.

Now you would think that the media has learnt its lesson after their loss. Alas that was not to be. They have continued their relentless attack against Trump, opposing all his policies. The game is to prove that Trump is incompetent and to tell his voters, “We told you so!”.

Trump being a man who doesn’t suffer fools gladly he had decided to take the gauntlet and embark on massive attack against the media. He uses every opportunity to remind whosoever cares to listen that the media is the enemy of the American people. The media wants the retention of the status quo.

It is easy to understand Trump’s anger towards harbingers of fake news. They not only spin things out of proportion, they sometimes make things up. A case in point was the allegation that CNN reporter was interviewing his camera man, who was posing as a protester on the streets. If that was true, it shows how unethical many of these media organisations are.

However, despite Trump’s legitimate concern over the behaviour of sections of the media, he cannot throw away the baby with the bathwater. He has to be accommodating to all sections of the media. The ethical misconducts he complains about have been noted by the American public, who are among the most highly discernable people in the world. Trump should note that the media is indispensible in a democracy. Trump cannot fight them and win. Let it not be said that under Trump, a man who will indisputably make America Great Again and the world safer, that people from outside including Third World countries where media crackdown is common, will be advising American government to respect the media and accord it all the rights to do their job without hindrance.

Let there be no more banning of sections of the media from the White House. While I can understand Trump’s refusal to attend White House Correspondents’ dinner, given the prevailing animosity against his government by some media organisations, I do hope that he would be there next time. That dinner by his absence has lost its essence. I recall that it was in such gathering that President Obama mocked Trump in 2011, and see what God has turned Obama’s laughter that night to. According to the UK Sun Newspaper many political commentators believed that Donald Trump launched his presidential bid to get revenge on Barack Obama after he publicly poked fun at the businessman during the 2011 White House Correspondents dinner. Whatever may be the case, the world has entered the Trump era. This new era should not be distracted by media antagonism. Let the media allow Trump to do his job and let the White House allow the media do theirs.