It goes without saying that one of the most important aspects of modern political life is the media that has often been referred to as a fourth branch of government. For some time now, people have turned to corporate newspapers and magazines to inform themselves.
Today, those traditional sources are joined by the alternative electronic media and social networks, which have begun taking over the traditional media in terms of the influence they enjoy and their readership. These alternative sources are generally more trusted sources of information due to the fact that they usually provide more objective coverage of the events unfolding in the world, since they are perceived to have no political bias and to be independent of authorities of certain states who have fully controlled the traditional media in the past.
The media would often unearth the most unpleasant facts about certain political figures, thereby shedding light on the hidden springs of modern politics, thus putting a limit on the abuse of power.
It goes without saying that the media occupies the center stage in the political process during the pre-election period in any state, since the media is the only force that can provide the critical swing vote in favor of a certain candidate. That is why politicians are paying a special amount of attention to the media, especially to traditional sources, which are willing to adjust their narrative according to the requests of those forces that are funding them.
All these processes can be observed in any country of the world, but recently they have been manifesting themselves in the United States on a greater scale during the latest presidential election. The traditional media has been using “dirty tricks” all throughout the pre-election period, publishing all sorts of unfounded and baseless allegations. This is particularly true for the media sources controlled by the Democratic Party, that felt that it was losing control of the country and made every possible step in a bid to regain it.
As for Donald Trump, his relationship went wrong from day one of his election campaign. First the billionaire was laughed at: “What presidency? Not a chance!”. But when Trump won the Republican primaries, he became no laughing matter. At that point most Western propaganda sources went into overdrive in a bid to prevent him from winning.
Hundreds of so-called political scientists and experts, who were on the payroll of Hillary Clinton and George Soros were waging an undeclared media war on Trump. The Obama administration, that at that point had nothing to brag about, assisted these sources in making all sorts of allegation about Russian hackers stealing the election. But when the hysteria reached its peak, and such heavyweights as Buzzfeed and CNN announced that Russia somehow was in a position to blackmail Trump, the American people began asking questions.
It goes without saying that by fulfilling the orders of hidden puppeteers including Soros and the Clinton Foundation, some traditional American media sources went way out of line, by assaulting both Trump’s supporters and the members of his family. Melania Trump has even filed a lawsuit against the Daily Mail for its articles about Melania’s alleged involvement in escort services back in the 90’s, demanding compensation of 150 million dollars for moral damage.
The White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has even issued a statement in which he urged the New York Times to apologize to Trump for publications about his administration allegedly being “riddled with inaccuracies and lies.”
We should also remember how poorly Western corporate media sources handled the incident with the leakage of transcripts of the phone conversations that Trump had with Australia and Mexico’s leaders. The US President described this situation as “shameful” and accused Obama’s people of making this scandal possible.
It’s hardly a surprise that Donald Trump himself has declared a war on some of the Western media. Speaking at the CIA, Trump announced that he found himself in a state of war with the members of the Western press, while once again accusing them of being dishonest. In late January, Trump boldly announced that the two leading media sources in the US – the New York Times and the Washington Post – are liars, that are deceitfully trying to undermine his work. At one of his press-conferences Trump has also deprived a CNN journalist from a chance to ask a question.
According to surveys, the vast majority of American journalists have been enjoying special relationships with Democrat representatives that have been providing the media with various preferences, including financial ones. The US Democratic Party has even took up the development of the Internet portal Shareblue, the main task of which is to discredit Trump.
The ongoing conflict between Trump and the US media has once again painted this “democratic country” in a bad light. It confirms the well-known fact that there’s a big difference between real democracy and the regime that wages information warfare on other states, and if there was something like the former in the US, such a bazaar squabble would be unthinkable in the land of the free.
And this scandal teaches us all that, depending on the needs of their sponsors, most American mainstream media sources are willing to make all sorts of allegations against any party. As long as they are being paid, they don’t really care against whom or what they are fighting for. That is why we are witnessing massive misinformation campaigns in the United States against such states as Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and many others, that hidden puppeteers want to present as the enemies of the American people, and that is really unfortunate.
Martin Berger is a freelance journalist and geopolitical analyst, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
