Public Enemy No. 1: Trump, Tweets, and Tall Tales

Fake news (n): a term coined by President Trump to refer to any mass media source that covers any unfavorable actions of the President. Such vile actions include: quoting Trump, using pictures that Trump does not like, and holding Trump accountable for his actions. Synonyms: The Failing New York Times, NBC News, ABC, CBS, CNN (for reference, see @realDonaldTrump on Twitter.).

Now that I defined yet another Trump term that cannot be found in any dictionary, along with his trademark “bigly,” a term Trump first introduced at a debate, I will address the President’s unwavering attack on the field of journalism, what he calls in a blanket statement, “fake news.”

It is truly remarkable that anyone besides President Trump, and his ironically anti-press Press Secretary Sean Spicer, could propagate the idea of fake news. Besides Trump, there are only a select few with the luxury of receiving daily briefings of the global political climate, so the rest of us find our news on Twitter or television. However, according to the Commander-in-Chief, if that news is found on any mass media source besides the historically right-leaning Fox News, it is indeed fake.

Journalists risk, and sometimes lose, their lives every single day to provide the people with up-to-date and accurate information. They do this because the people have the right to know the truth. Reporters do not demand credit for what they do, although they deserve it. They only ask not to be discredited when publishing less than favorable information regarding their subject.

Ironically, Trump has spat his fair share of fake news, for someone who likes to point his unusually small finger at the leading news sources. In simple words, he is wrong. In fact, Trump and his administration stray from the truth so often that it has become somewhat of a game to fact check the president. Often, his statements do not match up with facts, which leaves the question: is he a fake president?

Recently, Trump said he received the highest number of electoral college votes since Ronald Reagan. When a reporter corrected Trump’s fallacy, he responded that he was just given that information, to which the reporter asked why the people should trust him. Trump also said he would have won the popular vote over opponent Hillary Clinton if it were not for the three million illegal voters. Wrong. Mother of the “alternative fact,” Kellyanne Conway, referenced the “Bowling Green Massacre” in an interview with MSNBC, a tragedy that never happened. And perhaps the most insignificant of them all: the turnout at his inauguration. Amidst the alleged “mess” that President Trump inherited from Barack Obama, Trump spent much of the first week of his presidency insisting that there were over 1.5 million attendees, more than Obama’s inauguration, who Trump only recently admitted was born in the United States in a debate.

Journalists are not the enemy. Journalists are one of the only groups holding Trump accountable for his actions. It appears that the man leading the whitest White House in recent history is leading the attack on the media, charged with Tweets, propaganda, and bigotry. Any enemy of the media is an enemy of the people.