Attacks on journalism

by Matthew Skillman and Deborah Potter.

January 17, 2018, was a special day for President Donald Trump. He tweeted a link to GOP.com, the Republican Party’s main political website, which announced the winners of the “Fake News Awards.” “Winners” included CNN, The New York Times, and the Washington Post, which were criticized for their negative reporting on the president. The article claimed that over 90 percent of the media’s Trump coverage is negative.

The “fake news awards” are just one example of how journalism is under attack at an unprecedented rate by a formidable foe: the president of the United States. In December 2017, The New Yorker found that in his first year in office, Trump had tweeted the phrase “fake news” more than 150 times.

Local officials have picked up the theme.  An Idaho state representative created her own “fake news” awards.  Other elected officials have dismissed stories putting them in a bad light as “fake news.”

And the attacks on journalism haven’t stopped there. In the first three months of 2018, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker reported five physical assaults on journalists who were just doing their jobs.

These attacks are causing many to question the validity and accuracy of the news media and the stories they produce. According to a Monmouth University poll in April of 2018, more than three-quarters of Americans believe that mainstream television and newspaper outlets report “fake news,” and almost a third believe it happens regularly.

“These findings are troubling, no matter how you define ‘fake news.’ Confidence in an independent fourth estate is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy. Ours appears to be headed for the intensive care unit.”
–Monmouth polling director Patrick Murray.

Attacks on journalism are not limited to the United States and in some cases mirror President Trump’s tactics. In a story about the recent killings and displacement of the Rohingya people, an ethnic minority in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine, The New York Times quoted a Myanmar security official saying, “There is no such thing as Rohingya. It is fake news.” The Atlantic has also reported on the global reach of “fake news,”  citing Syrian officials’ use of the phrase to oppose confirmed evidence that the government executed prisoners and used chemical weapons on civilians, the Chinese military’s launch of a website where the public can report fake news about the People’s Liberation Army, and the Russian Foreign Ministry webpage that puts “FAKE” stamps on international media reports they find problematic.

Clearly, the notion of “fake news” is a problem, but what does the term actually mean? It turns out there is no agreed-upon definition of “fake news.” When the Edelman Trust Barometer conducted a flash poll in late 2017, they found a partisan split over the meaning of the term.  A majority of Republicans, 57 percent, thought fake news was “sloppy or biased reporting by news organizations” compared to 38 percent of Democrats.  Most Democrats thought the term fake news was “an insult to discredit unfavorable news stories.”

Neither definition matches that of the Cambridge English dictionary: “false stories that appear to be news, spread on the internet or using other media, usually created to influence political views or as a joke.”

Trump has focused on missteps by the media to stir distrust among the American people and, as the data show, it has had an effect. But journalists insist they stick to the facts and they’ve become more active in assuring their audience that they do so.  As CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer said in response to attacks, “The relentless pursuit of truth and the outright rejection of any attack against it, is something we still hold sacred. Always will.”

While the president’s attacks have been targeted mainly at national news organizations, Rebecca Baker, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, told the Associated Press they’re hurting local journalists as well. “Our members, many of whom work for small news outlets, are bearing the brunt of these unwarranted attacks, and it’s completely unfair. These are people who are serving the community,” she said. Her advice: journalists should respond to attacks by being more transparent about how they do their jobs–a strategy many news organizations are now employing.

Matthew Skillman is journalism student at the University of Montana.  As an intern at ABC-Fox Montana, he covered floods and the 2017 Montana Special Election.  After graduation, he will commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Signal Corp.  He will be stationed at Camp Humphries, South Korea next year.  Matthew grew up in Ennis, Montana, a small town of about 600 people.  When Matthew isn’t on a story he enjoys hiking, trail running, reading the Bible, traveling and petting every dog he sees.