Before entering politics as the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump was an extremely successful entrepreneur and television personality. You either love him or you hate him. Some people admire his boldness and ability to speak his mind, and some find it offensive and crude. I know how I feel.
Since Donald Trump is well-known for his tweets, I was going to do an article comparing the tweets about major events from him and another politician. However, as I was looking at his twitter, I realized a vast majority of his tweets are about "fake news."
Through countless amounts of tweets, interviews, and press conferences, it is abundantly clear that Donald Trump does not trust or respect the media. In February 2017, there was a viral video of Trump going off on reporters at a press conference. In addition to continuously telling reporters to "be quiet" or "sit down," he made very bold statements directed at one specific reporter. The reporter was asking a question about anti-semitic acts when Trump interrupted saying, "You see he said he was going to ask a very, simple easy question. And it's not. It's not. Not a simple question. Not a fair question, OK sit down. I understand the rest of your question."
Trump talked about his answer to the question for a minute before saying, "See he lied about... he was going to get up and ask a very straight, simple question. So, you know, welcome to the world of media." If that interaction alone, does not make it abundantly clear to you that he has no respect or trust for reporters or news organizations, take a look at his Twitter.
He recently retweeted a tweet from @RightlyNews that read, "Trust in the media is at the lowest level in all of U.S. history. The American people see right through the liberal media's lies!" Bill O'Reilly, a very conservative anchor for Fox News tweeted that Donald Trump will not be able to impact licenses, but is doing severe damage to NBC. Donald Trump quoted this saying, "Sadly, they and others are Fake News, and the public is just beginning to figure it out!" A few days earlier, Trump tweeted "People are just now starting to find out how dishonest and disgusting (FakeNews) @NBCNews is. Viewers beware. May be worse than even @CNN!" and "The Fake News Is going all out in order to demean and denigrate! Such hatred!"
While Donald Trump is making valid points about the media being untrue these days, is he executing it correctly? Not in my opinion. As a marketing major and someone taking a class on journalism and social media, I have learned that the world of news and media is changing, and the role of journalists and reporters are changing as a result. The goal now is to get as many views or clicks as possible, and with so many different news organizations out there, they are forced to use clickbait or share fake news to be successful in reaching that goal.
The problem with the way that Donald Trump is handling the issue of fake news is that it makes him look incredibly unprofessional and makes him look worse than it makes the news looks. Also, it makes the fake stories more believable. With Trump actually having done or said so many outrageous things, any untrue story about something crazy he has done or said is much more likely to be believed.
Donald Trump has tweeted several things about taking away the license of certain media outlets including tweets saying "Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked. Not fair to public!" and "With all of the fake news coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!" But, would that be violating the constitution? I guess that depends on how you interpret the first amendment and the role of the government.
What's your opinion? Do you think Donald Trump is right in attacking news organizations and threatening to take away their licenses?
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