News media are getting back to their core mission of keeping the public informed of important issues, after months of being distracted by colorful antics of celebrity candidates.
Television hosts are more forceful in pressing interview guests to answer the question posed and to offer evidence to support their claims, some of which are so blatantly false and outrageous that they would be laughable if not for potentially serious consequences.
It was one thing to take such claims lightly during a campaign, but no longer. For example:
-- Busloads of illegal voters invaded New Hampshire on election day.
-- Millions of illegal votes were all cast for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, thus costing Donald Trump a popular vote victory, even though he won the electoral vote and became president.
-- Perhaps the most egregious claim was that thousands of people danced in the streets of Jersey City on 9/11 as the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center came tumbling down.
There is no evidence for any of these claims. Now, rather than play along with such outrageous antics for the sake of better ratings, TV interviewers see the danger of entertaining demagogues, and are returning to aggressive journalism, pushing for evidence to support claims clearly false and outrageous, if not ludicrous.
To reply that "this is not the venue" to give evidence, as a Trump advisor did when asked for proof about the New Hampshire busload story, is not acceptable.
When you accuse, you must offer evidence to prove your claim. Otherwise, you are using the same Big Lie technique so popular in another dictatorship some 80 years ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment