Asking Too Much of Journalism

"But it was the Trump campaign’s coziness with so many Russians that made it all possible."  - AXIOS Online

During a recent live radio interview, the host challenged my assertion that recent scholastic and media industry studies concluded that Trump received 92% negative press prior to his election and just slightly less biased coverage since. I said a lot of the 'negative' coverage is reporters allowing their bias to seep into their stories. Often it happens by simply using pejorative terms. She wanted me to sight an example.

I am relatively new to live radio, so I wasn't able to sight chapter and verse, but I did say that most mainstream media reports on the subject of "illegal' immigration never distinguish between legal and illegal immigration. Reports on Trump often say he, and Republicans in general, are 'anti-immigration'.

That is absolutely untrue and the reporters know it is untrue and still they continue to frame the story as proof that Trump is xenophobic. It all starts with, and is perpetuated by a lie of omission, which is nothing less than slander and Fake News.

For example, here is a story on the millennial website Axios, which talks about how the Russians manipulate social media to divide Americans. Not content to just spread the important non-partisan news that foreign countries are weaponizing social media platforms, Axios has to blame it all on Trump!

The last line in the story is:
"But it was the Trump campaign’s coziness with so many Russians that made it all possible."

"Coziness" is a pejorative term, and it is just nebulous enough to avoid any claims of journalistic excess. 'Cozy' is one thing in reference to a nice evening in front of a fireplace with someone you love and a glass of wine. Or, it can be very negative when placed in context of one of our own sharing too much information with a bitter enemy. Since the idea of "Russian collusion" explaining why Hillary lost the election, the latter condition is what most people think (thanks to Fake News) when the subject of Russian influence comes up.

But Axios claims it would not have been possible if not for Trump having relationships with "so many" Russians (who are unnamed). If Jeb Bush had won the nomination, does anyone think the Russians would have thrown up their hands in defeat and abandoned their media manipulation campaign? Give me a break!

Even if we were to accept, for the sake of argument, that Trump had meetings with Russian officials before the election (which I am sure he did at some point in history), how does that extrapolate to his "making it all possible" to exert immense political and cultural influence on social media users all over the United States of America?

I would suggest that it is the nature of the social networking beast that makes it all possible.

What the Russians have been doing takes an immense amount of coordination and money. If Trump had any part in it, it would be something the Special Council would have had no problem documenting.

In their article, Axios says, "These (Russian) campaigns are easier because of the U.S. government's lack of unity in confronting the practice and the platforms. That's a big win for Russia."
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True, but this stuff was happening under the Obama administration. Hello? Can you put two and two together or is that asking too much of journalism today?

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