January 23rd, 2017

In my book I note how visionary, and scary, George Orwell's book 1984 has proved to be. Especially in the area of language misuse.

I came across a good example of the on-going war on Trump being perpetrated by the press. It illustrates how the mainstream news press has crossed over to becoming an agent for an agenda. They no longer understand the limited role that the news media should play in collecting and distributing news events for the public.

Chuck Todd (the anchor for the NBC Sunday morning NEWS program) interviewing Kellyanne Conway says he totally agrees with her description of what the news media's role is, then pivots and complains that he doesn't understand her 'motive' for challenging his use of pejorative language.

TODD: Why was it necessary to send out the press secretary on his first day in office to utter a provable falsehood that now calls into question everything the press secretary will say from here on out? 
KELLYANNE CONWAY: No it doesn’t.
TODD: It will for many Americans.
     (That is a conclusion that does not qualify as news. It is an assumption based on his personal perspective)
CONWAY: No it doesn’t. You want them to hear that….You want them to hear that they can’t trust our press secretary. I think that is--
TODD: What was the motive then?
CONWAY: -- a very dangerous statement to make.
      (She finishes her statement after he interrupts.)
TODD: What was the motive for the ridiculous litigation of crowd size?
CONWAY: And now you’re casting it--
      (She points out how pejorative his language is.)
TODD [Interrupting Conway again]: What was the motive?
     (He is switching the subject to the WH motives, avoiding her challenge about his biased language.)
CONWAY: Your job is not to give your opinion Chuck.
TODD [Over Conway again]: What was the motive?
CONWAY: Respectfully your job is not to call things 'ridiculous' that are said by our press secretary and our president. That’s not your job. You're supposed to be a news person, you’re not an opinion columnist.
BINGO!

On Friday night's NBC Dateline program, I heard Lester Holt summarize Trumps miraculous ascension to the White House. He said one of his most effect tools was "weaponizing Twitter."

I find it hard to believe that experienced 'journalists' like Holt would allow that kind of strongly pejorative language to describe someone using social media to distribute their thoughts. But I can understand it if I were using my news authority to influence the electorate and along comes a threat to my domain, who finds a 'weapon' to circumvent my hold on public access to information.

It is appalling that the media that we all must rely on to inform us has made the calculated decision to impose their own values on the information through deceptive use of language. Manipulating language is something we were warned about by George Orwell in back in 1949.