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I'm definitely someone of low ambition and likely low imagination, but I've never understood the desire as a journalist to fabricate when, as the saying goes, t
by danso 8y ago
I'm definitely someone of low ambition and likely low imagination, but I've never understood the desire as a journalist to fabricate when, as the saying goes, truth is stranger than fiction. For the sake of argument, let's assume that places like Fergus Falls, MN, are actually representative of the communities responsible for Trump's victory, and that Trump's victory, to the Der Spiegel readership, is a "bad thing".
The obvious "duh" narrative is that everyone in Fergus Fall is a multiple-gun-toting, sex-repressed hillbilly who wouldn't know the difference between or even the existence of Germany and Russia. Such a caricature is more "viral"/tweetable. But if you as a journalist wanted to raise the alarm about the rise of Trumpism, the far more disturbing story would be one depicting Fergus Falls as the "normal" and non-extreme place that it ostensibly is. Because that would imply the scenario of the "good German", where people are uncaring of the purported evil until it's too late.
That the Der Spiegel reporter went for fabricating schlock is, to me, indicative not just of his total lack of ethics, but also shallowness of thought, though maybe the two things are highly correlated.
- netsharc 8y agoIndeed, indeed. This reporter also spent time in a midwestern town, his report painted a better picture: https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2016/nov/16/how-trump-took-middletown-muncie-election https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2016/nov/16/how-trump... The caricature in everyone's mind is also dangerous, a lot of Trump "haters" probably just think the average Trump voter is a racist, gun-toting hillbilly. They don't want to further consider e.g. why people who voted for Obama would switch to vote for Trump. And how many people's image of "Muslim refugee" is immediately "ISIS fighter"? The same thing is happening with the rise of the populist right in Europe, these are people feeling economically insecure about the future (thanks to, among other things, Merkel's austerity policies as the de-facto leader of Europe), they're confused, the right is exploiting this fear to get them mad, and the left don't bother listening to them and dismiss them as racists, and think the answer is posters promoting tolerance...