https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/us/politics/trump-australia-barr-mueller.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/01/opinion/trump-australia-barr-mueller.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/01/opinion/trump-australia-barr-mueller.html
It seems that Ukraine wasn’t the only country Trump influenced.
A few weeks after the Ukraine phone call, Trump requested that the Australian prime minister gather information on the origins of the Muller
investigation and report to the Attorney General, William Barr, in an attempt to invalidate the investigation. The transcript of this phone call has not
been released yet.
Because the White House is taking steps to keep the transcript of this phone call from getting released to the public, there is a good chance that the
details in the phone call are just as, if not more, controversial than the Ukraine phone call. Also, there seemed to be a clear motivation for Trump:
given that Muller was investigating Trump, Trump wanted to investigate back. In fear of the report harming his reputation, Trump has once again abused his power for personal gain. Instead of trying to discredit a single person, Trump in this case tried to discredit part of the government, the
very institution he is a part of! Since he values personal gain over the wellbeing of the government and uses his presidential power for personal gain,
there seems to be more solid evidence for why Trump now has a higher chance of being impeached.
It’s interesting how two different news organizations covered this topic. FOX News, on the one hand, bashed the New York Times for
exaggerating Trump’s aid, further dividing the news organizations. On the other hand, The Huffington Post labeled an article “Richard Nixon
Had ‘Secret Tapes.’ Donald Trump Has Classified Transcript,” which compares Nixon’s scandal to Trump’s drama, making it seem like all
the evidence is present and clear to impeach Trump. The Huffington Post take a stance on this issue before all of the information on this topic
has been released. The Huffington Post also released more articles/videos on this topic than FOX News did. Mass media has the power to
shape the viewpoint of the topic, which can cause further divide between political parties today. By increasing coverage on the topic,
news sources also decide which subjects are more important than others, thus shaping public opinion.
exaggerating Trump’s aid, further dividing the news organizations. On the other hand, The Huffington Post labeled an article “Richard Nixon
Had ‘Secret Tapes.’ Donald Trump Has Classified Transcript,” which compares Nixon’s scandal to Trump’s drama, making it seem like all
the evidence is present and clear to impeach Trump. The Huffington Post take a stance on this issue before all of the information on this topic
has been released. The Huffington Post also released more articles/videos on this topic than FOX News did. Mass media has the power to
shape the viewpoint of the topic, which can cause further divide between political parties today. By increasing coverage on the topic,
news sources also decide which subjects are more important than others, thus shaping public opinion.
How does the Australia phone call affect Trump’s impeachment inquiry or presidential run? What are some other examples you’ve
seen of how media shapes public opinion?
seen of how media shapes public opinion?
4 comments:
Because the phone call with Australia was kept private from the public, Trump's phone call with Australia almost seems disreputable and improper. The phone call transcript could have been kept hidden because it could possibly make Trump detestable. Moreover, including the government to blame for the situation is pretty unjustified because it was because of his own personal motives, and none of the government's power was being used. Knowing that the public briefly knew about the situation and not telling the public the whole entire situation could extremely deteriorate Trump's presidency-- not to mention the power of the media. The media plays a vital part of politics and a simple statement of the media with some sort of polling to back it up could lead to unreasonable outcomes such as an impeachment. The impact of polls could be drastic, and can accelerate ones views on a simple discussion even if there are other sources that contradict that statement.
I believe that Trump's continued disregarding of the law should end in results equivalent to the Nixon scandal. However, this "breaking news" feels almost forced at this point, the Trump administration has had a big scandal every other day and despite the severity of this one, the media's seemed to dull the people to him. This is particularly worrying as without the support of the people, impeaching or at least voting Trump out of office will be more difficult in the coming elections. I can only hope that people listen to reason and our polarization issue will not keep a president found to be acting illegally as our acting president.
If the transcripts were to be released, and evidence did show that Trump was requesting foreign aid against an investigation targeting him, then I believe this could be crucial to the impeachment process. With that being said, I would also like to garner some caution on making this situation a big deal. I think media companies should be careful when reporting this kind of stuff without having all the facts at hand. It would seem that Trump’s administration (or at least his private lawyer Giuliani) is trying to input fake controversies amongst the real ones, discrediting the whole Ukraine investigation by using their own fake facts as holes to the validity of the actual situation. I think if the transcripts show no clear signs of what is alluded to in the article, then Trump supporters could use this fake accusation as a tool against the Ukraine inquiry. Tread carefully media companies.
That is a great point, Carlos. I never considered the idea that Trump's administration could bend the story to their will. In this case, I agree that it is important for media companies to fact check their sources. Then again, this kind of manipulation of the story would only work with people that want to hear that the media is misrepresenting the situation. Generally, since people understand that the media is the best and most efficient way to receive news, people will continue to listen to the media even if there are shreds of false information from time to time.
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