If you are one of those who think that politics is too polarised in Malta or that it is just over here that political verbal spats are becoming too vitriolic and chatting on the social networks too spiteful, it probably means that you hardly follow foreign news. The same applies if you believe that public discourse with total interchangeability between truth and lying is a unique Maltese characteristic.
Anyone who in the past few weeks followed the Brexit debate surely noticed the ‘endearing’ words exchanged between the ‘fear campaign’ and the ‘hate campaign’, to quote how each side dubbed the other. Boris Johnson, a potential future prime minister with Turkish ancestry, stoked people’s fears by spreading false claims about immigration and about the size of the UK’s contribution to the EU. Much worse was Nigel Farage’s scaremongering.
The situation on the other side of the Atlantic is worse still. Those who care to change their TV channel from Euro 2016 to news of American politics would immediately be showered by the continuing string of insults slung between opposing sides, with the Donald Trump bandwagon easily taking the trophy. Moreover they cannot but be surprised by Trump’s ability to spout absurd claims and blatant lies so frequently and with such determination when challenged that he tends to leave interviewers dumbfounded. The list is too long to even start savouring it here.
All this notwithstanding, Trump and Johnson not only get away with all this economy with the truth but amass popularity because of it. Trump, in particular, simply does not care about facts.
The answer to the question of why this is so, is not an easy one.
There are some who squarely blame the media. They say the media built Trump. They have given him and his lies over US$2 billion free publicity not because his wild statements deserve coverage in the public interest but because they up network ratings and consequently network profits. Leslie Moonves, CEO of CBS, said last February that Trump is good for their business. This cynical view of media carries more than a touch of truth.
They cannot but be surprised by Trump’s ability to spout absurd claims and blatant lies so frequently when challenged that he tends to leave interviewers dumbfounded
Sophia A. McClennen, professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at the Pennsylvania State University, last Wednesday wrote a commentary in Salon, the award-winning American online news and entertainment website, damning the media coverage of the presidential electoral campaign. Buttressing her arguments by several studies, McClennen wrote that the media have failed American democracy and betrayed the public’s trust because their election coverage lacks news integrity.
This malaise is long-standing and betrays people on several issues. A 2003 study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland, for example, had even suggested that those who consume no news whatsoever were more knowledgeable than Fox News viewers about the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
Other commentators beg to differ. They say that the website ‘Politfact: truth-o-meter’ continually fact-checks and rubbishes Trump’s absurd claims. ‘Fact Checker’ has repeatedly given to Trump the ‘Four Pinocchios’ rating, which indicates that a statement is totally false.
Mainstream media claim that they are doing the same but that their fact-checking does not impress people.
Martin Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post, last month told journalism students at the Temple University that “Fact-checking by mainstream media organisations has no effect. We are objects of suspicion, accused of hiding facts.”
Can one blame people for this state of affairs?
During the past 40 years or so, we have been bombarded by a philosophy that holds truth to be totally subjective. Everyone has his or her own truth and all are equally valid, we are constantly being told. All opinions – informed or totally ignorant – should carry the same weight, the mantra goes on and on. The new super-dogma is that truth is just a social construct. Even human nature is such a construct and talk about objectivity is considered to be non-sensical. Everything is relative to one’s point of view.
Since all truths are equally valid why should one bother to search for the truth? Are not one’s feelings, or just whims, or naked self-interest, or one’s group’s egoistic ambitions, or what gives one instant gratification not a valid justification to declare ‘A’ instead of ‘B’ as the truth? The criterion of truth in such a culture is convenience.
In an era of massive but fragmented means of communication it is opportune and easier than before to silo oneself in with like-minded individuals who listen to the same self-assuring ideas, chat with like-minded individuals and watch the programmes that prove that one’s ideas are the best, and they are – you guessed it – the truth.
Truth, within this scenario, is the beginning of one’s journey, not its end. In an era where we can know ‘all’ we end up just confirming what we already want to know and believe. Consequently, in this fertile soil of falsehoods, lies are accepted as truth. Pardon me, as THE truth.
This venom was injected in social, political and cultural circles. It polluted the air we breathe. We now enjoy its fruits.
Last Sunday, Brogan Morris, co-founder of political and current affairs blog Shamocracy, wrote in Salon that we have entered the era of post-truth politics. Last month, Chris Cilizza, a political reporter for the Washington Post, wrote in the Independent about the “death of the belief in fact”.
The consequences are catastrophic.
In the above-referred-to Salon article, Morris wrote: “The danger today is that the most unscrupulous of politicians, figures with a real contempt for the electorate, are the ones most likely to exploit voters in the post-truth era.”
A political culture based on the belief that “sometimes you have to tell the truth in politics” – vide Lou Bondi’s pre-electoral interview with Joseph Muscat – is a political culture based on cynicism with its self-destruct button already pushed half way to make the dreaded contact for an implosion.
Can the process be reversed?
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt