The Power of Media

Like much of the world I woke up this morning to the shocking news that Donald Trump is now America’s President-Elect.  There has been a great deal of chatter, post-election wisdom and hand wringing angst so I will attempt not to go on about what this win means in political terms.  Instead I would like to think about the power of media.

In 2008 I watched with intense interest the Democrat primaries as Hillary Clinton duked it out with Barack Obama.  I was always stunned by the after debate analyses when moderators declared Obama had out talked Clinton.  I’d ask “What did you hear that I didn’t?  She gave indepth answers while he talked nothings”.

In 1990 the Ontario NDP’s won a majority government which took corporate Canada by surprise.  In the years that followed I have heard this comment many times “look what the NDP did in Ontario” and I’d ask “what was that?” and responses floundered or were tentative such as “they sank the economy”.  I’d go “really, the NDP had the power to sink an economy that was already in a recession, how did that work?” and of course there’s dead silence after that.  But the people who are anti-NDP (or against any type of social programs – except, naturally they need help) blindly listen to what they have been “told”. 

Where do people get their “facts”?  Since the invention of newspapers, then radio and then television some people get some sort of information from these sources.  These people will then pass on a somewhat garbled account of what they have read or heard (although I believe that they honestly think they are being accurate in their interpretations). 

In the early 1980’s I worked for a lawyer who was extremely political and it was through him that I first learned the term “yellow journalism”. This is a type of journalism that uses little or no legitimate research in its story.  Instead these yellow newspapers use exaggeration, sensationalism and scandal-mongering to create eye catching headlines in order to sell more newspapers.  This type of “journalism” has spread into radio and television to the extent that many journalists become celebrities with their own brand or style of “reporting”.  People become more and more confused about what they are actually hearing or learning about any given topic.  Movie stars and other celebrities weigh in on topics that they often have little or no real information about (witness Leonard DiCaprio believing a chinook was a sign of global warming) and yet their comments will influence their followers, some profoundly. 

Now I have looked at a question that arose in a writing contest feature and pondered answers.   The question was, “Are digital technologies making politics impossible?”

For today, I will leave you with that to ponder as you absorb the news of Donald Trump’s win over a woman who, in my opinion, has brought more experience, intelligence, human compassion and a lifetime of public service into this race than any other presidential candidate in modern history.