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Trump v. the Media: a Fight to the Death
Cockburn, Patrick
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/20/trump-v-the-media-a-fight-to-the-death/Date Written: 2017-02-20 Publisher: CounterPunch Year Published: 2017 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX20411 At present, this is a golden era in American journalism, because established media outlets such as CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post find themselves under unprecedented and open attacks from the powers that be. Richard Nixon may have felt persecuted by press and television, but he never counter-attacked with the same vigour and venom as Trump. Abstract: - Exceprt: The phrases "fake news" and "false facts" give a misleading impression of what really happens in the course of political combat now or in the past. A direct disprovable lie, like Kennedy on the missile gap, is unusual. More frequent is systematic exaggeration of the gravity of real events such as Clinton's emails or Trump’s Russian connections. Sound advice on this was given 300 years ago in Dr John Arbuthnot’s wonderful treatise on "the Art of Political Lying", published in 1712, which warns that once a false fact or lie is lodged in the public mind, it may be impossible to persuade people that it is untrue except by another lie. Subject Headings |