Trump’s success shows mainstream media completely out of touch
The US election demonstrates that the mainstream media and the pollsters are out of touch with the majority of citizens.
It is high time we took a serious, scientific view of the influence of mainstream media and lobbyists on elections and other democratic processes, so that we can see with transparency who those not-so-democratic forces really are, and maybe limit or adjust their influence accordingly.
In a documentary recently aired on TV it was revealed that media mogul Rupert Murdoch had instructed the editor of one of his biggest UK newspapers to switch sides during a British election. “From now on we support Tony Blair,” he dictated to the poor editor. Is that how the news media work – on instructions from the owner? How does that fit in with the honourable idea of a free press and a true democracy?
Many Westerners here in Thailand first woke up to the biased nature of Western media when they saw its coverage of the political unrest here. The change came because they could compare what they were seeing and hearing first-hand with the filtered and biased coverage of the same events by Western media.
People in mainstream media are more than ripe for a period of self-cleansing. Or are they so totally tied up by contractual obligations or control exercised by their employer, colleagues or other people around them that they are totally incapable of making changes for the better?
A Johnsen
