Some species of shark need to keep moving to maintain a constant flow of water through their gills from which they can extract the oxygen they need to stay alive.
Trump is like a shark. Media attention is his oxygen. He constantly moves in ways people all over the world find disturbing, menacing, even alarming, to make sure he is on the front page of newspapers, the first story on the evening news, and the main topic of everybody’s social media feed every day.
He will be as outrageous as necessary to garner the attention that gives him the oxygen he needs to keep his political agenda alive. It doesn’t matter whether the coverage is favourable or critical, it’s all good for him.
This is the marketing strategy that enabled him to distinguish himself from the pack of contenders for the Republican nomination back in 2016, and which he continues to employ today, two months into his second term in office.
It’s a problem for journalism. While it is a journalist’s job to inform the public of what the president is up to, the media also serve his need for publicity, the oxygen that feeds his seemingly unsatiable appetite for power and domination.
In the process, the crucial job of separating fact from fiction can be a challenge for any of us, especially if we aren’t there, if we aren’t witnessing events unfold with our own eyes, if we can’t verify the facts independently. Most of us rely on the observations and fact-finding of reporters assigned to cover the White House, in particular those with a reputation of unimpeachable integrity and a scrupulous dedication to unearthing the truth.
What many observers here and abroad are seeing as the rise of an authoritarian leader comes at a time when the capacity of the free press is at a low ebb, with newsrooms around the world contracting and many closing altogether. Making matters much worse is the concentration of media power in the hands of a trio of billionaires all of whom appear to be beholden to Trump, or have interests that somehow converge with his, doing their part to help him control the message. Elon Musk says he is saving free speech in America by enabling everyone to propagate whatever fact or fiction they wish on X, his social medium formerly known as Twitter. Similarly, Mark Zuckerberg has abandoned all pretense of fact-checking information posted on Facebook. And Jeff Bezos has told his once-esteemed Washington Post that its opinion section is not to publish any critiques of free markets or personal liberties.
Among the litany of moves by the Trump administration to control the message, the widely-respected Associated Press was kicked out of the White House press corps on the grounds that it would not adhere to Trump’s unilateral renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. Perhaps even more chilling, in terms of repressing freedom of expression, a Columbia University student was arrested under threat of deportation for protesting in support of Gaza’s Palestinian people, and any college or university that allows what Trump calls ‘illegal protests’ is at risk of having its funding cut off.
Curbing free speech and obstructing the free press are moves typical of would-be tyrants to suppress dissent, making concerns that we are seeing the rise of an authoritarian in our midst not unreasonable.
One step at a time, Trump and his entourage are putting in place the chess pieces required to consolidate absolute, unstoppable power. With his occupancy of the executive branch, full control of the legislative branch, and an apparent immunity to the judicial branch, there does not appear to be much left in terms of checks and balances on his power beyond what can be provided by the fourth estate, the free press.
The motto of the Washington Post is Democracy Dies in Darkness. If the paper that revealed the Watergate scandal can be brought to heel, where will the light now come from?
