5 ms·

This article starts out with a gross inaccuracy that is often repeated, but is not true. Donald Trump did not say that the news media is the enemy of the peopl

This article starts out with a gross inaccuracy that is often repeated, but is not true. Donald Trump did not say that the news media is the enemy of the people. He said that the fake news is the enemy of the people. Those are almost identical phrases, but that slight difference has a completely different meaning: media is good, but lying media is bad. Can you wonder why Americans have lost trust in the news? Even an article purporting to clear things up for us starts out being misleading.

gazpachotron 4y ago
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chimprich 4y ago
There are several cases of Trump using the term without reference to "fake news". For example, just look at an archive of his tweets. April 5th 2019: "The press is doing everything within their power to fight the magnificence of the phrase, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! They can’t stand the fact that this Administration has done more than virtually any other Administration in its first 2yrs. They are truly the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!" Or how how about singling out individual news organisations he doesn't like as "enemies of the people"? Feb 20th 2019: "The New York Times reporting is false. They are a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!" The difference between calling all the media "enemies of the people" or just the ones he dislikes doesn't seem to be that big a distinction for the purposes of the argument. EDIT: removed unnecessary emotion
- macintux 4y ago
  He also has effectively redefined “fake news” to mean “unflattering (to him) news”.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  > "The press is doing everything within their power to fight the magnificence of the phrase, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! They can’t stand the fact that this Administration has done more than virtually any other Administration in its first 2yrs. They are truly the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!" Yeah, I thought he said something like this, thanks for confirming. They should have just quoted him.
kemayo 4y ago
In the tweet that got a lot of attention, what he said was "It is the FAKE NEWS, which is a large percentage of the media, that is the enemy of the people!"[1]. That "a large percentage" bit, along with how he fairly-commonly used "fake news media" to mean all non-explicitly-conservative news sources explains why people felt he was attacking the press in general, I think... [1]: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1025115155632455680 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/10251151556324556...
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  I feel it important to write the full tweet you're quoting in context. > They asked my daughter Ivanka whether or not the media is the enemy of the people. She correctly said no. It is the FAKE NEWS, which is a large percentage of the media, that is the enemy of the people!
  - kemayo 4y ago
    I don't think that changes anything about what I said. He's still explicitly saying that a large percentage of the media is an enemy of the people.
    - logicalmonster 4y ago
      Is it impossible to imagine that a large percentage of the media is driven by more than a pursuit for the truth or even just their own paycheck?
      - kemayo 4y ago
        At a level where we could say they're "fake" and "the enemy of the people"? I'm skeptical.
    - hot_gril 4y ago
      Then the New Yorker could have said that instead of what they said.
- 4y ago
tzs 4y ago
He said it several times, sometimes with "fake" and sometimes without. The first few times he explicitly listed news organizations he said were fake, including NYT, WP, ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN. By mid 2018 it had grown to mainstream media is fake [1]. In the last year or so he'd also been slamming Fox. It's pretty clear that his definition of "fake news" is functionally equivalent to "anything that isn't positive about me, no matter how true". [1] https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1041441676949184512 https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/10414416769491845...
robertoandred 4y ago
Except Trump defined "fake news" to be anything that's not Fox or OAN. That's why conservatives lost faith in the news.

gazpachotron 4y ago

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chimprich 4y ago

There are several cases of Trump using the term without reference to "fake news". For example, just look at an archive of his tweets. April 5th 2019: "The press is doing everything within their power to fight the magnificence of the phrase, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! They can’t stand the fact that this Administration has done more than virtually any other Administration in its first 2yrs. They are truly the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!" Or how how about singling out individual news organisations he doesn't like as "enemies of the people"? Feb 20th 2019: "The New York Times reporting is false. They are a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!" The difference between calling all the media "enemies of the people" or just the ones he dislikes doesn't seem to be that big a distinction for the purposes of the argument. EDIT: removed unnecessary emotion

macintux 4y ago
He also has effectively redefined “fake news” to mean “unflattering (to him) news”.
hot_gril 4y ago
> "The press is doing everything within their power to fight the magnificence of the phrase, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! They can’t stand the fact that this Administration has done more than virtually any other Administration in its first 2yrs. They are truly the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!" Yeah, I thought he said something like this, thanks for confirming. They should have just quoted him.

kemayo 4y ago

In the tweet that got a lot of attention, what he said was "It is the FAKE NEWS, which is a large percentage of the media, that is the enemy of the people!"[1]. That "a large percentage" bit, along with how he fairly-commonly used "fake news media" to mean all non-explicitly-conservative news sources explains why people felt he was attacking the press in general, I think... [1]: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1025115155632455680 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/10251151556324556...

logicalmonster 4y ago
I feel it important to write the full tweet you're quoting in context. > They asked my daughter Ivanka whether or not the media is the enemy of the people. She correctly said no. It is the FAKE NEWS, which is a large percentage of the media, that is the enemy of the people!
- kemayo 4y ago
  I don't think that changes anything about what I said. He's still explicitly saying that a large percentage of the media is an enemy of the people.
  - logicalmonster 4y ago
    Is it impossible to imagine that a large percentage of the media is driven by more than a pursuit for the truth or even just their own paycheck?
    - kemayo 4y ago
      At a level where we could say they're "fake" and "the enemy of the people"? I'm skeptical.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    Then the New Yorker could have said that instead of what they said.
4y ago

tzs 4y ago

He said it several times, sometimes with "fake" and sometimes without. The first few times he explicitly listed news organizations he said were fake, including NYT, WP, ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN. By mid 2018 it had grown to mainstream media is fake [1]. In the last year or so he'd also been slamming Fox. It's pretty clear that his definition of "fake news" is functionally equivalent to "anything that isn't positive about me, no matter how true". [1] https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1041441676949184512 https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/10414416769491845...

robertoandred 4y ago

Except Trump defined "fake news" to be anything that's not Fox or OAN. That's why conservatives lost faith in the news.