Fake News is the Authoritarian’s Tool

By the Smoke Signal Editorial Board

“Quiet. Quiet, piggy,” President Donald Trump said, poking his finger at a Bloomberg News reporter asking about the Epstein files. The comment is certainly not out of line for Trump, who has a history of demeaning reporters, but the clip quickly gained traction on social media and sparked immense controversy. The “Quiet, piggy” remark is only a small snippet of the Trump administration’s systematic effort to degrade the integrity of journalists — rhetoric that has only fueled Americans’ wide distrust of the industry. 

Trump has never shied away from attacking journalists — having popularized the term “fake news” starting in 2016 — and has used his executive powers to further reprimand the industry. In July, he signed a bill cutting federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which finances NPR and PBS. The White House also recently launched a page for “Media Offenders” to lambast news outlets for alleged bias. Although its “Media Offender of the Week” — most recently The Washington Post — tend to lean to the left, the goal of the Trump administration is not to shed light on the inherent bias in any publication’s reporting, but to perpetuate the idea that media outlets are intentionally deceiving Americans about his agenda.

In his first term alone, Trump called journalists and news outlets “fake news” nearly 2,000 times according to the Independent, while making more than 20,000 false or misleading claims himself according to The Washington Post. Amidst a slurry of misinformation from the Trump administration, “fake news” has become a convenient way to skirt around accountability, upholding his false narratives by sowing systemic distrust in the journalists who dare to oppose him instead. Among his supporters, this tactic seems to be working: a 2020 Gallup-Knight report found that one in five “very conservative” Americans believe distrusted media is “trying to ruin the country.” 

But trust isn’t just falling among Republicans. The federal administration’s widespread attacks against journalism come at a time when trust in the media is already at an all-time low. According to Gallup-Knight, only 26% of all Americans have a favorable opinion of the news media. The report also found that Americans aren’t just skeptical of the media — they harbor a deep emotional distrust, believing that major news outlets are intentionally misleading Americans. This idea, exacerbated by years of the Trump administration’s attacks, has seeped into the sentiment of everyday Americans. 

Young people, who have grown up with a president that regularly attacks the media, are especially distrustful of the news. A report from the News Literacy Foundation found 84% of teens express negative sentiment about the news. Around a third of teens believed journalists intentionally lie to deceive the public. However, the idea that a certain few media outlets are knowingly pushing a false agenda onto Americans is hardly true. According to Ad Fontes Media’s bias index, most publications that Americans consider mainstream — including the New York Times, ABC News, and CNN — have reliable and accurate reporting. This is not to say that mainstream outlets don’t hold any bias: a report from Prism Reports found consistent pro-Israel bias across American newsrooms. And recently,  BBC recently came under fire for misconstruing Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021 speech. But these instances are far from the broad attacks that paint mainstream media as antithetical to the truth. 

Journalism is integral to our democracy, and is the only industry explicitly protected in the Constitution — yet, as our nation continues to lose faith in its integrity, those in power remain steadfast in their attacks against the press. Nearly 3,000 local newspapers have shuttered since 2005, leaving more than 200 US counties in news deserts without local news outlets. As both the journalism industry and our trust in it has declined, Americans have increasingly turned towards social media to replace the news. 70% of Americans who get their news from alternative media, like social media, report low emotional trust in journalism. 

The idea that the mainstream media is hiding the truth has created an environment where the misinformation we see on social media or spouted by politicians can now thrive. In an era where experts, from scientists to economists, are blatantly ignored, it’s more important than ever that we remain steadfast in supporting journalists, rather than the authoritarian politicians and conspiracy theorists that try to tear them down.