Harrop: Trump's critics in media hand him their megaphone
The time has come for Donald Trump’s critics to take a much-deserved vacation from all things Donald Trump. The media especially can use this time to work on dropping their compulsion to obsess on every lie, insult and provocation he crafts for their consumption. This invitation extends to participants in social media, which, after all, are media also.
It is slowly dawning on the anti-Trump camp that repeating every inanity only feeds the propaganda machine. Attaching condemnation matters not. Just typing Trump’s affronts word for word amplifies them. You know what they say about how lies replayed and replayed start being taken as truth.
George Lakoff, a linguist who advises Democrats, vents frustration at how cleverly Trump manipulates the professional media. “Trump has turned words into weapons,” he recently said, “and he’s winning the linguistic wars.”
“Journalists have been trained to repeat what officials, especially the president, (say),” Lakoff added. “What it does is keep the lies out there.”
What should traditional media do? Make clear he’s lying. Tell what the lie is. Then go back to the truth. If there are part-truths in what he’s saying, then by all means include them.
Happily, respected news sources are getting better at treating the raw sewage before sending it through their pipes to the public. When Trump lies, they are now less inclined to copy-paste his statements in the headline. Instead, they center on the truth he’s dismantling.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/harrop-trumps-critics-in-media-hand-him-their-megaphone/?utm_source=DAILY+HERALD&utm_campaign=35312c7dc6-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d81d073bb4-35312c7dc6-228635337
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