Margaret Sullivan sets out a critique of One America News Network (OANN), which, given she’s at a major competitor, I would have taken as biased, except I’ve seen the OANN correspondents at press conferences with President Trump and must agree, they show neither professionalism nor professional skills at all – they’ve completely given in to the idea that the media must be biased, or, as Sullivan notes, [OANN] even unapologetically described itself last year as “one of his greatest supporters.”
But, in the context of Fox News sometimes criticizing the President’s actions of late, this is what struck me:
But for Trump — whose recent efforts to tie MSNBC host Joe Scarborough to a staffer’s accidental death suggest his increasing desperation to change the subject — the outlet’s lack of standards is far from disqualifying.
It’s a compelling part of the attraction. [WaPo]
Or, to judge from President Trump’s pleased response to the ridiculously phrased question from the OANN correspondent, he likes what he hears.
He likes what he hears.
And that, my friends, isn’t the purpose of the news media. It doesn’t exist to say things that please the viewer. It exists to tell you what’s happening in the world. And if that news makes you unhappy, maybe it’s time to think about that fact and what it may mean.
But Fox News was built on the premise that if it presents ‘news’ that pleases the viewer, they’ll come. And they certainly did, as Fox News is one of the most successful channels in cable-land.
President Trump is emblematic of this demographic, a leading example of the category who demands the news reports things they like, of the ‘I don’t like what I’m hearing and I’m going elsewhere’ crew. I’m not saying that all Fox News viewers are that way, but once they start watching, they are trained to disbelieve mainstream media, as evidenced by their original slogan, ‘Fair and Balanced‘. Doubt me? Pick an argument with a Fox News viewer and see how quickly mainstream media, which of course you’re citing in this test, is denigrated as twisted and untrustworthy. I had that experience myself just recently.
But now that Fox News has had the uneasy feeling that some of what it reports and opines (think Hannity or Fox and Friends) may be so wrong that people could get hurt and sue, or even that non-governmental news services could be outlawed – don’t think it hasn’t crossed Trump’s mind – and actually voiced them by reporting and opinions at variance with Trump’s preferences, Trump is thinking about moving to OANN. It’s a shockingly self-centered thing to do, but perhaps unsurprising for Trump, who grew up in the age of the ascendancy of television. Television, in his faux-reality show The Apprentice, was all about the creation of the appearance of reality. Being both a child of Television, and a creator within its realm, he’s become entirely certain that he can create the reality he desires, or demand that it be reported and thus it’ll exist. And if his favorite channel refuses?
He’ll walk. No more interviews, no more complimentary citations, no more invitations to appear at his rallies. He’ll have his way when it comes to reality.
But all this reinforces my opinion that if you find comfort in the news shows you’re watching, then maybe you’ve made a mistake. The world isn’t always a friendly place. Of course there’s conflict, but worse there is news – results, if you will – that conflicts with your ideological assumptions. Maybe a particular policing technique, proposed and implemented by the political opposition, has actually worked in violation of your ideological predictions.
Is this when you walk away and find a channel that didn’t report it? Or reported it as an example of fake news? Sure, this can be a tricky subject, because sometimes the reporter gets it wrong, or the reported numbers are wrong, or any of a number of other factors. But assuming they are all right …
Do you try to fudge reality?
