Fake news instead of real criticism

by Denis Churilov, Australia

There are so many real things Trump should be criticised for, yet the mainstream media keeps making up stuff, producing fake stories and misreporting news about him. What for? Isn’t there already enough real material for the media to destroy him without repeatedly making fools out of themselves?
The most recent case was last week, when major American news outlets (including ABC News, CBS News, CNN, NBC News, as well as the Washington Post) reported that Trump called illegal immigrants “animals”, when in reality he was specifically referring to the members of MS-13, a criminal gang whose associates have been accused of beheading their victims.
Don’t they understand that, by fixating on minor things, taking remarks out of context, misreporting and blatantly making up stories, they only de-legitimise the anti-Trump movement?
Why do they have to lie?

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Attempting to answer my own question, I would say that it has to do with the artificially “limited spectrum of acceptable opinion” described by Noam Chomsky in his 1998 book titled “A Common Good”. The establishment media can only discuss and debate things within a very narrow range of topics, creating an illusion of public discussion, while real issues remain unchallenged.
The reality is that those anti-Trump forces that lobby and sponsor the media actually support some a significant portion of the Trump Administration policies.  As such, all major US news outlets applaud Trump when he fires rockets at Syria.  The media don’t criticise Trump for selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, thus enabling the crisis in Yemen, because the US military-industrial complex makes hundreds of billions out of it (besides, being friends with Saudi Arabia helps the US-based financial institutions to maintain the petrodollar system).
The reality is that many of those in power who oppose Trump are complicit in many of his crimes; therefore, you are unlikely to see the mainstream media covering some of the most crucial issues. But they still want Trump out of the office, so they make stuff up to compensate for the lack of things they are allowed to talk about.
Besides, many post-modern thinkers say that we live in the post-truth world, where public discourse doesn’t have to correspond to facts and reality, so making stuff up shouldn’t be a huge deal for the media anyway.

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