During his final press conference of 2016, President Obama blamed “domestic propagandists” for giving rise to fake news.
ABC’s Martha Raddatz asked, “Do the tweets and do the statements by [President-elect] Donald Trump embolden Russia?”
The President declined to speak about Trump, explaining that the President-elect is not yet in power and is still in the transition process. He then told the press pool that fake news becomes believable when real news uses sensationalist headlines, making it difficult to separate fiction from the truth.
“If fake news that’s being released by some foreign government is almost identical to reports that are being issued through partisan news venues,” the President said. “Then it’s not surprising that that foreign propaganda will have a greater effect because it doesn’t seem that far-fetched compared to some of the other stuff that folks are hearing from domestic propagandists.”
The term “propaganda” is an interesting choice of words. It means specifically media that is produced by the government to get people to think a certain way. It is doubtful that President Obama is speaking about government-sponsored media here.
The federal government does create propaganda, but mostly to win the hearts and minds of people in tumultuous areas overseas. Because the government funds something does not mean it is misleading – plenty of propaganda produced by the U.S. is designed to counter the propaganda of terrorists or enemy regimes.
The ban on domestic radio propaganda was lifted in 2013. You didn’t notice? Most people didn’t – because unless you listen to Voice of America, broadcast stateside then for the first time in its history, federally-owned media likely makes little to no appearance in your life. The only reason you can access it now is due to an amendment to the Smith-Mundt Act, a Cold War Era ban on domestic propaganda (differentiating us from the Soviets, who fed their people a steady diet of state-owned media).
President Obama wasn’t talking about Voice of America or Radio Free Europe – after all, the government he runs is controlling those entities. He was talking about clickbait produced by for-profit companies. Every media company, including this one, gets paid based on how many people read, watch, or listen. There is no bonus payment for telling the truth.
Adding to the media clickbait problem is that a near total distrust in the traditional press has driven people to seek news from other sources, which may or may not be legitimate. In a September 2016 Gallup poll, only 14% of Republicans said that they trusted the media. 51% of Democrats, however, said that they believed the press. Skepticism drives us to alternative news sources, especially since reporters were often shilling for their supposed subjects.
Wikileaks’ hacks of the DNC emails and longtime Clinton aide John Podesta’s emails revealed that members of the press routinely surrendered editorial control to the Clinton campaign. POLITICO reporter Glenn Thrush sent at least two excerpts of his writings to high-level campaign staffers to ask for their approval before publishing. The New York Times has since hired Thrush.
Mark Leibovich, also of the NYT, emailed Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri to ask her permission to use portions of an interview with Hillary Clinton. Palmieri responded with her edits. These are only two examples of many instances of Clinton collusion with the media, not to mention then-CNN contributor Donna Brazile sending her debate questions in advance, among others.
The text of emails is not propaganda.
It would seem that major news media have learned nothing from November 8th. They continue to spout naked biases on Twitter. Though everyone has their biases, you’re supposed to suspend them as a professional and report the facts. Reports of several anti-Muslim hate crimes have made the rounds, though they later turned out to be hoaxes. It remains to be seen how the Facebook-Snopes partnership will impact shared news since Snopes’ main political fact-checker is an avowed liberal who has a history of publishing falsehoods to help Democrats.
Social media allows everyone to be a reporter – but it requires everyone to be a fact-checker, too.
