Genesis of fake news

During the ninth annual University of Idaho’s Oppenheimer Media Ethics Symposium Thursday night, NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik dove into how journalist coverage of Donald Trump challenged the public understanding of critical political issues and what it means for the Biden administration. 

Folkenflik has spent the last two decades reporting on the relationship between the press, politicians, and the general public broadcasting his work through NPR’s network news magazines such as All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Here & Now. In his studies, Folkenflik has focused on how this relationship has changed, becoming increasingly hostile and slant centric — especially following the fake news divide. 

“Those who oppose, or critique, or are exhausted by Trump might say this is the media’s fault that they are exhausted by him. They say he’s the media creation,” Folkenflik said. “I think that’s wrong. I think Donald Trump is a self-creation.”

Through what Folkenflik described as “splashy announcements” — calling journalists and planting information to tabloids, Donald Trump pushed his actions as a man, and eventually the President-Donald-Trump-brand into the national consciousness. 

Before Trump had asserted his presidency plans, he had already made a name for himself as an entrepreneur, a casino owner, a man with television and movie appearances. So by the time he committed to the race, Donald Trump was a household name, Folkenflik explained. What made this brand-name president so successful with the media, he contended, was that you never quite knew what Donald Trump would say. 

“Donald Trump had that same kind of phenomenon during the 2016 race,” Folkenflik said. “I talked to cable news hosts who told me there were times their shows might be preempted not by what Trump’s speaking but by the anticipation of Trump speaking.”

By confounding people’s expectations of what a politician might say, Trump carved out more time than the other 17 Republicans, he ran against in his first election. While his strategy did this, Folkenflik pointed out it was the media that gave him this attention. As he became a front-runner, the press corp began digging into him, his finances, foreign relations, and family. In turn, Folkenflik said this intensified the hostility between the media and politicians over the past half-century.   

Folkenflik described the asymmetric targeting of politicians that dates back to Spiro Agnew during the Richard Nixon years, Joe McCarthy in the '50s, and George HW Bush’s “annoy the media vote for Bush” bumper stickers. Then came fake news, which the media viewed as a joke and politicians used as a battling cry, Folkenflik said. 

“By 2016, the media was a target. It was almost as if Trump had made the media his main opponent in the primaries,” Folkenflik said. “At times, you saw reporters acting out on social media or being needlessly confrontational in their verbal jousting with the president. Not to say it wasn’t warranted, or the press hadn’t been unfairly attacked. Just that there were times where it seemed as if they walked into the role of adversary.”

Folkenflik said it made the media less consumed with finding more information to contradict, confirm or check what’s happening and more concerned with the nature of the facts themselves. As stories became diluted with what was true and false that people took sides. Leading to rifts, Folkenflik noted, between politicians and members of the press who discredited one another. However, what is most important about the media — particularly now with a new presidential administration — is its responsibility to connect the public with information. 

“I think that the media needs to hold Joe Biden accountable. I think they need to hold him accountable for his promises, his politics, actions, rhetoric, and those around him. They need to figure out how not to go chasing after him as if everything is a mega scandal simply because that was the pitch they were on with Trump,” Folkenflik said. “The truth is based on facts, and there have to be consequences for lies.”

The Oppenheimer Symposium, sponsored by the School of Journalism and Mass Media, has been supported since 2011 by U of I graduates Doug and Arthur “Skip” Oppenheimer of Boise. Its goal is to promote professional responsibility and ethical behavior by journalists and other media professionals and expose U of I students to nationally known journalists and media critics.