When the White House itself is spreading #FakeNews, how can journalists respond?
by Martin Belam, February 8, 2017 I wrote a piece for the Guardian’s opinion section yesterday about how the media must adapt to the tactics that Donald Trump and his White House team are employing.
“What the Trump administration’s error-strewn list does is push journalists on to the back foot. The hours spent fact-checking and refuting his ludicrous claims are replicated across news organisation after news organisation, rather than focusing on what Trump is actually doing – trying to force through Betsy DeVos as education secretary, or scrapping the regulations on banks that were put in place after the 2007 crash. As we get to grips with living in an era in which the White House is going to call the press ‘very, very dishonest’ people who are suppressing information, we, as journalists, are going to have to wrestle with how to deal with this.”
by Martin Belam, February 8, 2017 I do live blogging, news stories and quizzes at the Guardian, and help cover Eurovision and Doctor Who for them too. As a journalist and designer I’ve spent over twenty years building digital products for the likes of Sony, the Guardian, the BBC, the Natural History Museum, Arts Council England and Reach (formerly Trinity Mirror). You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com. Sign up to get my blog posts sent to you via email.