Making Journalism Great Again

In the early days of his mandate as president of the United States, Donald Trump had one formidable enemy to fight. It threatened the very core of the values that the Republicans believed to be American. In fact, it embodied the very thing that was pulling Uncle Sam’s homeland out of its path to revived greatness, according to the conservative’s gospel. It raided in flocks or as lone wolves lurking through the streets of Washington, quietly waiting for an opportunity to catch their prey. Their main weapons, although rather rustic, were mightier than any sword.

Trump’s nemesis was the Press.

From his first speech as President of the United States, Donald Trump has been at war with the liberal mainstream press. His enemies soldier for the - until then - very American values of political liberalism, social diversity and freedom of speech, all of which have been sidelined by conservatives since the beginning of Trump’s campaign. From their side of the trench, Trump and his aides have used their best tactics to undermine the Press: Fake News, Alternative Facts, Sean Spicer.

Nevertheless, the Press persisted.

However, contrary to the most pessimistic and obvious predictions, the Trump offensive against the mainstream liberal press has a silver lining. After years of declining numbers, major newspapers like The New York Times or The Washington Post have experienced a surge in subscriptions after the presidential election. To every Fake News or Alternative Fact cast by a member of his administration, journalists double their fact-checking efforts as a counter offensive. Caught in the midst of this battle of truths lays the ordinary citizens, who, in their need to consume reliable information, have rekindled their attention to serious, responsible journalism and news making as an act of ideological and political resistance. Someway along its war with Trump, Journalism became America’s unexpected hero.

“Some people think that firearms are what protect us from government tyranny, but I don’t think that’s true. A pistol isn’t going to save anyone from a fighter jet. Journalists are the first line of defense against oppression, and without them we wouldn’t even know there was a problem. A strong independent press cannot last long without freedom, and freedom cannot last long without a strong independent press”, says Michael, from Maine, one of the 132,000 Americans who subscribed to The New York Times after Trump’s election.

A brief history of Fake News

The political use of Fake News – namely fabricated stories with a political agenda behind them -is, by no means, a new phenomenon. In fact, it can be traced all the way back to Ancient Rome and then down to World War II (1939-1945). So far, it was simply labelled as propaganda. As “The Telegraph” observes, a combination of factors contributed to give new dimensions to fake news during the 2016 election.

Before the 2010s, the media landscape was not favorable to fake news publishers. The infrastructure demanded to act in this field was costly and intricate and the means of distribution demanded a sophisticated logistics that was simply out of reach for most people. It all changed around 2007. Smartphones became a thing with the launch of Apple’s iPhone and paved way for the rise of highly-addictive social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Suddenly, information production was no longer a monopoly of media companies. Anyone could produce any type of content, publish on a collaborative platform and reach a wide audience, anywhere in the world – all in just one click.

With extremely accessible and affordable means of publishing content on the Internet, the last remaining barriers to the Fake News industry fell down. But that alone would not sustain the whole phenomenon. Here’s where Donald Trump comes into play. His highly polarizing presidential campaign, added to his already controversial mediatic persona made him the most unlikely choice for a commander in chief. Still, his hell-raising rhetoric catered to a segment that felt dissatisfied with the liberal politics of the Barack Obama years (2009-2016) and that’s where he paved his way up. For Trump supporters, fake news stories were a simple tactic to undermine his political opponent, Democrat senator Hillary Clinton, and, in the process win some undecided voters who did not stand with her. Blended together, these so far unmixed forces became the political whirlwind that led Trump to the White House.

According to this Buzz Feed analysis, in the last three months of the US presidential campaign, political fake news outperformed the main stories from mainstream news outlets, like New York Times or Washington Post. This means that fake headlines such as “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Trump For President, Releases Statement”, published by Ending the Fed website, earned more Facebook engagement (960,000) than stories from traditional media outlets, like the Washington Post’s headline “Trump’s History of Corruption is Mind-Boggling. So Why is Clinton Supposedly the Corrupt One?” (849,000), as shown by the Buzz Feed report. As Carson points out in his article on “The Telegraph”, although Facebook engagement does not translate necessarily into a direct persuasion tool, it is undeniable that they had a role in expanding the already wide rift between Republicans and Democrats in the 2016 election.

When Facts were Alternative

While the Fake News cloud still hung over the media landscape, Donald Trump fired the first shot of his war against the liberal mainstream press. The battleground was his press conference, on January 2017, one week before his inauguration ceremony. There, he blasted CNN as “fake news” for presenting claims of spurious financial ties between the President-Elect and Russia. The New York Times was torpedoed as a failing newspaper, while Buzz Feed received the brasher epithet of “failing pile of garbage” for publishing an unsubstantiated report on his controversial behavior in Russia. Following the authoritarian leader playbook, Trump branded everyone that was against him as an enemy.

Adding insult to injury, Trump’s advisors and aides proved themselves overtly inapt in handling with press enquiries. After his inauguration ceremony, aerial pictures showed that the attending crowd was much smaller than the one present at Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009. Still, Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, claimed that it was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration. In a live televised interview, Republican campaign counselor Kellyanne Conway labeled Spicer’s exaggeration as an “Alternative Fact” – an expression that coined itself into the public imaginary as the perfect description of “Trumpolitics”. And, with that, Trump’s team checked on item number two on the authoritarian leader playbook: the truth is always on our side, no matter the evidence of facts.

Turning to the bright side

Donald Trump’s aggressiveness towards the liberal mainstream media came as a surprise to those accustomed with the cordiality and relative transparency of the Obama years or even to the informational greyness of the second Bush era (2001-2008). It is even more astonishing when considered that this is a man who built his name as a controversial media personality before his very recent foray into politics. After absorbing the impact of the new relationship dynamics with the White House, journalists had to redouble their efforts in fact-checking every bit of official information released. Journalism took a stand by simply clinging to its core values of objectivity, investigation and public-oriented service. And that’s where the plot twist begins.

“In my sector of journalism, fake news is the best thing that has happened for decades. It gives mainstream quality journalism the opportunity to show that it has value based on expertise, ethics, engagement and experience. It is a wake up call to be more transparent, relevant, and to add value to people’s lives. It can develop a new business model of fact checking, myth busting and generally getting its act together as a better alternative to fakery”, says Professor Charlie Beckett, in his article “Fake News: The Best Thing to ever Happen to Journalism”, published at the London School of Economics Polis blog.

As Calum Borchers points out in his Washington Post article “Is Donald Trump Saving the News Media?”, Trump’s tactic of rallying criticism from mainstream media in order to gain support from Breitbart and Fox News followers ended up backfiring. Borchers points out that some media organizations, upon realizing part of the audience’s need for reliable information, strategized their paywall campaigns over their commitment to facts. “Truth. It’s hard to find, but easier with 1,000+ journalists looking”, says The New York Times ad, before offering a 40% discount off any subscription. “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is the Washington Post’s new slogan, subtlety implying that they are offering themselves as keepers of the light. “As accusations of facilitating the spread of fake news continues, our readers can draw comfort and confidence from content that is created, curated and checked in a real newsroom”, posted the Wall Street Journal above a Facebook subscription ad where it presents itself as the “Most Trusted Newspaper in America”. The highlight of this anti-Trump newspaper campaign came in the form of a The New York Times commercial aired during the Oscars ceremony. In it, using just black bold letters onto a white background and fragments of conflicting speeches as soundtrack, the newspaper offered the most colorful picture of the current political zeitgeist in America and the role the press has to play in it.

The readers strike back

But when did all those newspapers became aware of their role as keepers of truths in Trump’s America? It’s impossible to pinpoint when, but there is a good guess as to how their realized their pull in this tug of war. Shortly after Trump’s election, The New York Times subscription numbers went sky high, with about 132,000 new subscribers in just three weeks. In an interview with CNBC, Times CEO Mark Thompson said that this represented a tenfold increase when compared to the same timeslot, one year before. In a statement to Poynter[3], a spokeswoman for The Wall Street Journal claimed that the newspaper had a 300% spike in subscriber volume the day after the election. Even Vanity Fair made a profit out of a Trump attack on Twitter, earning the highest number of subscriptions ever received by its publishing house, Condé Nast, in a single day. This subscription sales effect has been dubbed “Trump Bump”. But what is on the receiving end of this media phenomenon? Enter the subscribers.

“It’s not just a resistance to Trump; this is standing up for facts. This Administration has demonstrably and probably lied. They knew their information was false, and they said it anyway. They lie about wiretapping, about meetings with Russia, about jobs reports, about charitable giving. They even lie about whether or not Trump is golfing. Sometimes, the lies are so inconsequential that there is no reason to even lie, but they do it anyway. This administration has done everything short of declaring open war on facts”, says Michel, one of the recent newspaper subscribers.

Michael subscribed to The New York Times, the Washington Post and his local Maine newspaper, so he wouldn’t lose track of what was going on his backyard. John, from Minneapolis, followed the same pattern. In his view, supporting media organizations it’s not just a way to keep oneself informed, but also to hold the president accountable, regardless the official information releases.

“With the rise of the internet and web sources, I’ve heard way too many people in the last several years complain about ads and paywalls who aren’t willing to pay for the news. Getting and reporting real news costs money. Hopefully, people will continue to see this value even after their fear of a President goes away”, says John, from Minneapolis.

California native Katrina subscribed to The New York Times to support the newspaper’s journalistic integrity I the midst of an overall lack of unbiased reporting. Still, she points out the importance of supporting local journalism:

“There is no way for small newspapers to make steady money without subscriptions and people just aren’t willing to pay for a subscription, unless they get something in return. Local news organizations need to get smarter about marketing. Once they are making more revenue, they will be able to invest more”, says Katrina.

And here’s where this phenomenon comes full circle. Donald Trump’s war against the media, fought with Fake News and Alternative Facts, made people subscribe to newspapers in order to get reliable information. Charged with bigger revenues, newspapers can invest in high-quality reporting in a variety of issues, including opposing Trump. That seems to be The Washington Post’s plan. With a 75% increase in digital subscriptions from January to December 2016 – they did not disclose monthly data – the newspaper was described by its publisher Fred Ryan as “profitable and growing”. As would happen in any company under similar circumstances, they are now planning to expand their newsroom by adding 60 new editorial jobs. Considering that current state of journalistic employability in the world, this makes The Washington Post an oasis among a desert of layoffs.

As the bright side of Fake News and Alternative Facts for the mainstream media is still being outlined, one thing can be said. When Donald Trump opened his trenches to fight against the press, he did not realize one thing: he was giving them the most needed tools to fight back.