Years ago, I attended a training session that included a workshop on negative political campaigning.
The workshop was a “how-to” and there was a resource person, I think.
It was a long time ago. I really only remember two things about the session. One detail I recall was that only a few of us questioned the ethics of such campaigns. And looking back I sure was naïve. I mean it was a “how-to” workshop, wasn’t it?
The other thing I remember is that it was emphasized that if you were doing such advertising in our democracies you had to have your facts right. That was because if you didn’t you would lose credibility. And that meant losing votes.
Well things have changed. Today it seems that political campaigns and politics in general are all about saying negative things about your opponent. And it doesn’t matter if those utterances are factual or bogus.
I thought about that long ago training session while reading Martin Baron’s excellent book Collision of Power Trump, Bezos and the Washington Post. Baron was the top editor at the Post from 2013-2021.
The work became more difficult beginning June 16, 2015 when a blustering, big-headed reality show host rode down a golden escalator in New York’s Trump Tower and announced that he was running for president. From then on Donald Trump was relentless in attacks on any media that had the audacity to publish anything negative about him.
The issue of calling out a public figure by saying s/he is telling a lie was a controversial one for Baron and his colleagues. It seems that getting a handle on the concept of truth is about as difficult as getting a hold of a Lake Erie Eel.
Early in his presidency Trump advisor Kelly Ann Conway introduced the idea of “alternative facts” to a bewildered public. But Ms. Conway went one better when she claimed that “if you don't know what's true, you can say whatever you want and it's not a lie."
Baron believes that the role of papers like the Washington Post is to hold people who are in power accountable. That’s becoming harder as resources for traditional reporting dwindle.
Maybe it doesn’t matter? Is anyone really paying attention? Baron quotes New York Times columnist Carlos Lozada from his 2020 book, What Were we Thinking.
“First, we are asked to believe specific lies. Then bend the truth to our preferred politics. Next, to accept only what the president certifies to be true, no matter the subject or how often his positions shifts. After that, to hold that there is really no knowable, agreed-upon truth. Finally, to conclude that even if there is truth, it is inconsequential. Lies don’t matter, only the man uttering them does."
There is no room for traditional Upper Canadian smugness, however. “Alternative facts” practitioners are alive and well in Ontario. Take Doug Ford, for example. Here’s what he said recently about the health-care system:
“I want to be clear — Ontarians continue to have access to the care they need, when they need it.”
Check that “fact” out with the residents of Clinton or Minden or Fort Erie. Last month the Ontario Health Coalition reported 868 temporary or permanent emergency department closures; and 316 urgent care centre closures in 2023. That is, in fact, a fact.
Our democracy seems to be coming apart. We need to find a way to agree on facts and come together to address what matters in our communities.
Different Alternatives
Baron writes about national media but there is a role for our local media which unfortunately is diminished and in danger of disappearing. Two hundred years ago William Lyon Mackenzie, revolutionary, first mayor of Toronto began publishing a paper called the Colonial Advocate. To be sure Mackenzie had his own views front and centre but the paper would also provide verbatim reports on meetings, proceedings of the legislature etc... so people could form opinions of their own.
John McKnight has other ideas for local media. McKnight, is a community organizer and co-founder of the Asset Based Community Development Institute. He has championed the idea that communities are places of strength; that solutions to some of our issues can be found by seeing the assets of our communities and neighbourhoods rather than the deficiencies.
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| John McKnight |
McKnight believes that our local newspapers should be “servants of citizenship.” Big papers can’t do it as they “act on the hidden assumption that the large institutions of government, corporations and agencies provide the important news.” The big papers hold up “a kind of mirror that promotes a disabling culture where citizens pull back from public life and grow cynical about their society,” he writes. *
Local media, on the other hand has the potential to engage citizens around real issues that matter in a way that can bring people together. Check out your local paper and you’ll notice the focus on citizen initiatives and community.
We need to find ways to support it. Our Democracy requires it.
*Servants of Citizenship: Understanding the Basic Function of Newspapers in a Democracy (Learning Twenty-three) | John L McKnight (johnmcknight.org)
