USA
The alt-reality of the alt-right
GRANVILLE WILLIAMS reports on the problems of the US media that they helped to create by hyping Donald Trump
THE NOTION that the US “ liberal mainstream media ” are crooked and deceitful goes back to the late 1940s and 1950s . But President Donald Trump , the Fox News-Breitbart axis and a conservative ecosystem that includes blogs , Facebook pages , and conspiracy sites have taken it to a whole new level .
There is now a gaping divide as two parallel media systems , mainstream and right-wing , promote facts and alternative facts and describe reality and alternative reality .
Trump creates his own reality , which is why his attack on media that challenge him is so vehement . His idea of the media as the “ opposition party ” is also unreal . The “ mainstream ”, or corporate media are highly concentrated – 90 percent of them owned and controlled by six multinational corporations – and hardly left-wing or liberal .
The six corporations function , like all big corporations , to make big profits . This rationale that led them to cover Trump excessively during the primaries . As Les Moonves , chief executive of CBS , remarked : Trump ’ s campaign “ may not be good for America , but it ’ s damn good for CBS .” Some opposition !
Trump ’ s media assault is selective , focusing particularly on CNN and the New York Times but exempting Murdoch ’ s media empire . Murdoch has been running Fox News in person since the departure of Roger Ailes . The key three prime hours on Fox News are now presented daily by Trump supporters and the White House has easy access .
Trump asked Rupert Murdoch to put forward candidates to run the Federal Communications
2 Free Press Spring 2017
Commission ( FCC ), which regulates the media industry . Already the FCC has started its assault on regulations that maintain media fairness and independence . Its new chair is Ajit Pai , a Republican lawyer who worked for the broadband internet provider Verizon ( formerly part of Bell and before that AT & T ). Ajit Pai strongly opposed the 2015 net neutrality rules that reclassified broadband providers and treated them like a public utility . In December he vowed to take a “ weedwhacker ” to what he considers unnecessary regulations and said that net neutrality ’ s “ days are numbered ”.
The Republicans have a new majority at the FCC . Ajit Pai has long maintained that under former Chairman Thomas Wheeler it overstepped its bounds , suggesting that he would steer the agency in a direction more favourable to big phone and cable companies . Pai opposes online privacy regulations that force broadband providers to ask consumers for permission before using their data .
The FCC is likely to allow more huge mergers ; Pai voted to approve AT & T ’ s 2015 acquisition of DirecTV and has said he would do the same for Comcast ’ s effort to acquire Time Warner Cable .
The cable industry ’ s trade group , the NCTA , has supported him , saying he has a “ commonsense philosophy that consumers are best served by a robust marketplace that encourages investment , innovation and competition .”
Another Trump target will be the Corporation for Public Broadcasting ( CPB ). This provides funds for National Public Radio ( NPR ) and television ( PBS ). The CPB budget to support these services was $ 445m in 2015 . Donald Trump intends to follow a list of budget cuts , suggested by the conservative Heritage Foundation , one of which is that the CPB should be privatised .
Such an action will not cut much off the Federal budget but it will undermine one vital source of independent reporting and current affairs programmes which many Americans rely on .
CAN THEY HACK IT ?
I THINK IT ’ S PROBABLY BETTER FOR ME NOT TO GO INTO HOW THE INTERVIEW AROSE …
RUPERT MURDOCH was present during Michael Gove ’ s grovelling interview with Trump , published in The Times on January 16 , according to the Financial Times .
The Murdoch and Trump families have been close for years . Numerous photos were taken of the encounter in Trump Tower , some showing Gove giving an excited thumbs-up signal .
But Murdoch appeared in none of them .
When Gove was asked in an interview to confirm that Murdoch was there , he gave a strange reply .
“ The best thing to say I think , in fairness is , um , in securing the interview , I think the fact that it was the Times newspaper and the fact that
TRUMP ’ S SELF-PROCLAIMED “ running war with the media ” and journalists (“ among the most dishonest human beings on earth ”) encourages suspicion and confusion . The test will be how robust the media which are not compliant with Trump can be – not so much in responding to his diversionary tweets and off-the-cuff comments , but in reporting and documenting the reality of his regime .
They will have to jettison notions of “ fair and balanced ” when the President and his staff reject objective truths and embrace conspiracy theories . Will they be up to the task ?
The coalition of extreme right-wing websites like Infowars , Drudge Report , The Gateway Pundit , LifeZette , and Breitbart serve as bridges between the alt-right fringes of the internet and the conservative mainstream media . They have a sophisticated level of coordination which facilitates the spread of fake news into the mainstream media .
The right-wing media infrastructure is well established , in the mainstream as well as the fringe . Fox News began in 1996 . Mainstream conservative news outlets , spanning talk radio and Fox News , have fomented a toxic alternative reality within which a constellation of fake news-purveying websites has thrived .
we had the – what ’ s the word ... I think it ’ s probably better for me not to go into how the interview arose or how it came about but I think it ’ s entirely fair for people to make a set of conclusions or assumptions about that ,” he said .