By Tayo Ogunbiyi
“IF it were left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” The preceding quotation is from a former President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, and it unambiguously underscores the importance of the media in a democracy.
As the lifeline of any nation, the media provide not only information on what may affect the people in their day-to-day functions, but also keep them informed of developments around them. The reach of the media and the effect that they can have on the general public make them the fulcrum of development in the world.
Over the years, autocrats, tyrants and despots in various parts of the world, and over diverse ages, have tried very hard to silence the media for obvious reasons. In some cases, scores of journalists have been killed, maimed, jailed and dehumanized by despots whose main goal was to stifle the media.
Societies with histories of gross disrespect for democratic institutions and principles are often most guilty of spiteful anti-media tendencies. Such abound in quantum in Africa, Asia and, to a large extent, some nations in Eastern Europe, especially during the Cold War era.
Ironically, however, what is currently playing out in the United States of America, the supposed leading light and self proclaimed global guardian of democratic tenets, is quite curious. President Donald Trump, without a doubt, cuts the image of one who is going to give his country’s media a raw deal. Never in the history of the country has a leader exhibited such overt disdain for the media.
To keen observers of unfolding events in the country, President Trump is on a retributive mission against the American media. They are certain that the President is out to get his pound of flesh from the media over what he considered ‘biased media coverage’ in the last presidential election which he won, albeit without winning the popular vote. And, the way he is going about the business is not shrouded in secrecy. Unlike the conventional political leader who will openly court the media but surreptitiously ‘kill’ them behind the scene, Mr. Trump is explicitly mouthing his disgust for the media, and at every given opportunity.
A few days to his inauguration, the maverick businessman and politician held a press conference in which he took his disdain for a section of the American media to a rather ridiculous height. On that occasion, Trump openly refused to allow questions from reporters of certain media platforms which he referred to as ‘fake media’. It was so awful that one would think it was a tyrant back in the ancient days that was holding court. Sadly, some of his supporters, who were present at the event, cheered him on while at the same time they jeered profusely at the hapless reporters from the allegedly ‘fake’ media houses.
That was barely a week before Mr. Trump’s inauguration. About two days after his inauguration, while addressing members of the United States’ intelligence community at the CIA headquarters, Mr. Trump similarly lashed out at the media in a most unpresidential manner. He declared: “I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on Earth…” Ironically, Mr. Trump who is extensively reputed for making largely unproven claims, alleged that he dislikes the media because he loves honesty and thus prefers “honest reporting.”
As is often the case in action-packed movies, the presidential media lampoon did not end with the tirades at the CIA headquarters. A few hours after the event, Mr. Trump’s chief media aide, Sean Spicer, with the audacity of a Nazi war time media manager, hurriedly assembled the White House press corps into the James S. Brady briefing room, which his principal had earlier threatened to close, and tutored them on accountability. He said: “There’s been a lot of talk in the media about the responsibility to hold Donald Trump accountable. And I’m here to tell you that it goes two ways. We’re going to hold the press accountable, as well.”
Within the few days of his presidency, it is so glaring that Mr. Trump is metaphorically poised for war on many fronts. He is at war with the American political establishment. He is at war with a ‘fraudulent voting’ order in his country.
Outside America, the European Union doesn’t seem to catch his fancy; same for NATO. As for Mexico, that country had better start figuring out how it will finance the great wall that Trump is bent on building along the two nations’ border. German leader, Angela Merkel, is equally not likely to have it easy with the Trump presidency. Remember Mr. Trump had earlier referred to her refugee policy as a catastrophe!
However, of all the wars that Mr. Trump is geared to fight, the one against the media appears to be, perhaps, the most sensitive and dangerous. Being the acclaimed home of democratic values and ethics, Mr. Trump would be doing incalculable damage to his regime with a war against the media in his country.
Ogunbiyi writes from Lagos