I was on Fox Media Buzz to talk about the role the news media plays in amplifying divided views, the double-standard of the media, the media not covering the Twitter files and how the media amplifies Kanye’s message.
Watch:
Partial Transcript
Howard Kurtz
Here’s the overarching media question for 2023. In a country that is so incredibly polarized, so bitterly divided, has the press. Helped create it even inflamed these conditions?
Gayle Trotter, is the media’s rock bottom reputation explained in part by this? For two years now, we’ve been in warring camps.
One side says Donald Trump is perpetuating the big lie by saying the 2020 election have stolen the other camp. Trump and his allies say no. The idea that there was an insurrection is the big lie hammered home by the Media Democrats and the January 6.
Gayle Trotter
Well, I think what you’re looking at is the media is amplifying the messages from the leaders of the two political parties.
The media is not creating this polarization, but instead they’re amplifying these diverse views we have of the same set of events.
Howard Kurtz
Don’t journalists have a choice as to what they amplify? And don’t they also comment on what they’re amplifying?
Gayle Trotter
They do, but I think the criticism of the media in this circumstance is that there’s a double standard.
Trump is not allowed to grouse about the results of the 2020 election. But obviously, Hillary Clinton, Stacey Abrams, if you want to look back really far, Al Gore were able to complain about the results of their elections.
And Trump, you know, did not complain that Biden was elected with the help of the Russians and that Biden is Putin’s puppet.
Howard Kurtz
We’ve seen this play out, even with the battle over Elon Musk and Twitter, Gayle. I mean, most of the mainstream media refusing even to cover the Twitter files, which prove, absolutely proved that conservatives were blacklisted, shadowbanned and so forth.
And then you have the journalists who love the old censorship system now suddenly discovering that they love free speech because they and their pals were suspended for a day.
Gayle Trotter
Yes. And that was called out in real time, and everybody could see that.
You had this collusion between big media, big tech, big government, which was all concealed, and now that Elon Musk has revealed it, either the media are not covering it, or they are attacking Musk.
Musk used to be this amazing figure that everyone was so inspired by, but now that he’s revealed truth, which is what the media is supposed to be doing, he’s suddenly persona non grata.
Howard Kurtz
Okay, so just briefly, you look at all these billionaires trump, Musk, and also Kanye, who with these antisemitic rants and his proclaimed love of Hitler became impossible to ignore. Then you throw in the dinner with Trump and all the corporations dropping him, and you’ve got an irresistible story.
Gayle Trotter
Well, Howie, you and I talked about the Kanye situation a few weeks ago, and I made the point, and I reiterated that when you see this type of anti-Semitic content being put out by a leading figure, you shouldn’t give any more air to it.
The media is wrong to amplify that and to continue to give a platform.
And I think with Kanye, it keeps going down to lower levels of platforms. But I think when that starts, when you see that and also the treatment of Sam Bankman-Fried with the entire FTX unraveling, there’s definitely a lot of colorful figures on every side of every story in 2022, and it’s catnip for the media.
