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“...but no one was interested in the facts. They preferred the invention because this invention expressed and corroborated their hates and fears so perfectly.” (Baldwin, 1955), and without a doubt, that is what President Trump has done since the start of his presidential campaign. Ever since Mr. Donald Trump announced his run for the United States Presidency, he has intelligently used the fears of the American people and on the way created new ones for his benefit by the application of several different tactics but more especially by the use of authoritarian propaganda such as the use of “Fake News. Now, while there might be some truth behind Trump’s authoritarian “Fake News” propaganda, it is important to note that Mr. Trump has harmed the good reputation and demeaned the media by calling it evil journalism and “the enemy of the people” through the use of “Fake News” propaganda for his political terms.
It is important to start by defining what is authoritarian propaganda when the term “Fake News” was invented, and how it became a slogan for Trump’s political campaign and presidency. According to Jason Stanley, “Authoritarian propaganda is a form of communication in which a leader concocts a fiction that offers a narrative explaining why the problems that trouble whole groups of people have a simple origin and even a simple solution; not only that but it sets up the leader as the only origin of truth” (Stanley, 2016). Having that said, what better example of authoritarian propaganda than Trump’s use of “Fake News”?
But what is fake news? According to Webwise.ie ”Fake News” is news, stories, or deceptions created to intentionally mislead or deceive readers. Commonly, these narratives are designed to either influence people’s views, push a political agenda, or create confusion and can often be a lucrative business. ('Fake News,' 2018). While Trump might lead us to believe that he invented the term “Fake News”, in reality, Craig Silverman, BuzzFeed News Media editor was the individual who popularized the concept back in 2014 when he began to come across websites that were formulated to look like real news websites but the content on them was false. It was not until January 2017 that Donald Trump did a press conference and called the media outlet CNN “Fake News” for the very first time. Following this conference, Trump managed to average more than daily use of the expression “Fake News” in his tweets during his first year in office, and while his approach of the word “fake” was used to such subjects as the Russian dossier, it was almost constantly aimed at the news media as an offense.
But why the media? Why is Trump so adamant to discredit the press? According to Lesley Stahl who is a veteran correspondent for the CBS Network, President Donald Trump once told her that he deliberately uses the phrase “Fake News” to deflect from and discredit, negative media coverage of his presidency. (Hasan, 2018, para. 3) With the previous information given, it is safe to say that Mr. Trump’s use of “Fake News” is practiced as impairing propaganda that enables him to undermine both the accusation and the likelihood of the accuser.
In Conclusion, the use of the word “fake news” has become a weapon for Donald Trump to win arguments through language. By undermining and demeaning the media, Trump puts the journalists in a place of disbelief whenever they are presenting news to the nation that he does not concur with or puts his administration and political ideas in a place of attack. Trump has shown everyone he can build a whole presidency around provocation and authoritarian propaganda by manipulating the media into swarming him with negative coverage and looking like he is the enemy and then running against the media at the same time he is discrediting it to his followers. Trump has shown that he can shut down high competitors, challengers, and opponents by being so outrageous that he simply denies them the oxygen of media coverage.
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