Nicholas Kristof: When a Crackpot Runs for President

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/opinion/when-a-crackpot-runs-for-president.html

When a Crackpot Runs for President
Nicholas Kristof SEPT. 15, 2016

snip//

A CNN/ORC poll this month found that by a margin of 15 percentage points, voters thought Donald Trump was “more honest and trustworthy” than Hillary Clinton. Let’s be frank: This public perception is completely at odds with all evidence.

On the PolitiFact website, 13 percent of Clinton’s statements that were checked were rated “false” or “pants on fire,” compared with 53 percent of Trump’s. Conversely, half of Clinton’s are rated “true” or “mostly true” compared to 15 percent of Trump statements.

Clearly, Clinton shades the truth — yet there’s no comparison with Trump.

I’m not sure that journalism bears responsibility, but this does raise the thorny issue of false equivalence, which has been hotly debated among journalists this campaign. Here’s the question: Is it journalistic malpractice to quote each side and leave it to readers to reach their own conclusions, even if one side seems to fabricate facts or make ludicrous comments?


snip//

So I wonder if journalistic efforts at fairness don’t risk normalizing Trump, without fully acknowledging what an abnormal candidate he is. Historically we in the news media have sometimes fallen into the traps of glib narratives or false equivalencies, and we should try hard to ensure that doesn’t happen again.

We should be guard dogs, not lap dogs, and when the public sees Trump as more honest than Clinton, something has gone wrong.

For my part, I’ve never met a national politician as ill informed, as deceptive, as evasive and as vacuous as Trump. He’s not normal. And somehow that is what our barks need to convey.

[Cary]

1. Maybe the American people will get smarter in the next 50 days?

But then nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

[joeybee12]

2. Or underestimating the incompetence of the media

Especially such a biased media.

[EV_Ares]

3. This article asks a great & important question about media "equivalancy".

Thanks for posting this article, certainly warrants a good discussion all around & we are especially seeing that with this presidential election & the two candidates involved.

I am not sure what the news media like the NY Times can do because I bet in their particular case like the Washington Post that their readers can distinguish between the two candidates & who is the best qualified candidate.

I think the biggest problem is TV News Media & I think there is a very serious "false equivalency" in the tv news media. First, the problem is how the two presidential candidates are covered, how much each candidate is covered & how the tv (especially cable news) covers for example {Clinton & Trump Foundations).

The other problem we have is how too many people are not willing to sit down & read a news article like the one you posted, listen or watch a really good investigative report because they want everything in a soundbite.

The news media can't spoon-feed us & if the American people get too many who lack in education to understand the complexities of our government, candidates & our lives, don't have enough interest to learn or participate in our democracy by educating themselves about the candidates & the issues & above all don't vote, not sure what the answer is.

That said; I do very much believe I know what the result is going to be though, which is a loss of our democracy because if the people do not actively participate in our democracy we are going to get a government that is not going to be a government of the people but one of corporations or other.

[Coyotl]

4. "We should be guard dogs, not lap dogs ...."

[procon]

5. The concept of a free press is enshrined in our Constitution as an obligation.

We cannot have a functioning Democracy without an informed public, and simply copying press releases is not a substitute for reporting facts and truth, or criticizing deceptions and lies. Over time, I've watched the press go from
guard dogs to lap dogs, and the more powerful these media conglomerates become, the less concern they have about holding up their end of that Constitution bargain.

Thomas Jefferson once wrote:

"The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers... [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper." -- Thomas Jefferson, Oct. 13, 1785.

[uponit7771]

6. The MSM has already normalized tRump