Donald Trump lied. That’s what the Washington Post recently affirmed. Specifically, they said he lied about hush money payments to former mistresses Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.
In a front page article, the Post justified its claim that Trump had knowingly lied. Fact checker Glenn Kessler presented the proof. The plea deal by Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, provided “indisputable evidence that Trump and his allies have been deliberately dishonest.”
Think about that. One of the nation’s top newspapers went 7 years without ever pointing out that a politician had knowingly lied. Not a president, a Congressman, a U.S Senator, a state legislator, a governor, a mayor, a city councilperson, or a county executive. Not even a goddamned dog catcher.
Politicians are liars. What proof do we need for that in a general sense? Nothing more than their humanity. Pretty much every person lies from time to time. When you call in sick or tell your friend you can’t go out. When you assure Aunt Mathilda you love that sweater she bought you for Christmas. When you fill out your taxes. When a man wears a toupee, or a woman a pushup bra. When you were a kid or a teenager, to your parents. And now to your own kids when you’re trying to get them to behave or go to sleep or distract them from whining about that thing they want but you’re not gonna get them. Families practically thrive on lying.
Sometimes we even know someone’s lying, but don’t say anything out of politeness. We recognize they’re boxed into an uncomfortable social situation, or embarrassed about a personal shortcoming or an unhappiness that has befallen them. We let them save face.
Responsible journalism also fails to point out many lies. Why? Because they need to be sure, and that’s not as easy as it sounds. A lie is defined by intent. So while a newspaper might be able to prove that a politician is objectively wrong, can they really prove it was intentional? Take Donald Trump, for example.
Trump is profoundly ignorant. Expecting he will never stumble over various statistics is a bit naive. He also seems to be quite gullible in many ways. He frequently spouts incorrect statements that he himself likely believes. For example, he probably believed, at least for a while, that Barack Obama really was a Kenyan Muslim.
Then again, all but the most diehard partisans recognize that Trump also lies frequently. Bold faced lies dribble from his mouth like mushed corn onto a baby’s bib. His statistics aren’t just wrong, but unfathomably wrong. His fictions are so perverse, one is tempted to admire his creativity.
What’s the press to do?
The short answer is, Not enough.
Responsible journalism’s modus operandi has been to verify and document Trump’s lies, but officially label them as “misstatements,” or some other term that denotes they are factually incorrect, but avoids questions of intent. They do not call him, or other politicians, “liars.”
This is, at the very least, highly problematic. I would argue that it’s also profoundly irresponsible and detrimental to our republic.
Why? Because the establishment press’s unwillingness to call a spade a “spade,” as it were, helps create an atmosphere where politicians are not held to account. It’s not enough to simply point out they’re wrong, and let readers decide what that means.
If politicians are painted as never lying, which is essentially what the Post did for 7 years, then it reinforces politicians’ denials, encourages them to lie more, and perhaps worst of all, contributes to people’s cynicism about politics. Yeah, politicians lie all the time, and there’s nothing we can do about it, so why should we get upset? Even the press won’t really call them on it.
As you might guess, responsible, establishment journalists can get a bit testy about this. New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet recently opinned: “Does it matter if The New York Times or The Washington Post uses the word ‘lie’ 3 times, 7 times, 10 times, 20 times? Or does it matter more that the fact-checker has found 4,229 misleading statements?”
Actually, they both matter, Dean. And when papers fact check obsessively, but refuse to call a lie a lie, they’re only doing half their job.
Is it a slippery slope? Absolutely. I fully recognize that once you start playing fast and loose with the facts, it’s not long before you’re really no better than a propaganda mill like Fox News. I’m not calling for responsible newspapers to suddenly become irresponsible. I’m not asking journalists to pickup pitchforks and torches.
Rather, I’m saying there needs to be more balance. Right now there’s almost a fetish to identify and categorize each and every Trump misstatement, half-truth, and falsehood. Yet there seems to be almost no effort to identify which ones are lies. Instead of documenting over 4,200 “misleading statements,” you document a couple thousand of the big ones, and then try to figure out which aren’t just “misstatements,” but actually are born of intent.
it’s very difficult to get inside anyone’s head and prove they’re lying. Sometimes it’s impossible. But responsible journalists can talk about motive and circumstantial evidence. They can also use words like “likely,” “possibly,” and “seemingly” to indicate that while we can’t prove such-and-such statement is an intentional lie, the odds are very, very good that it is.
And if the Times, the Post, and other mainstream, responsible journalistic outlets are unwilling to do this, then they need to begin leading the nation in another discussion:
How is it that the president of the United States could make well over 4,000 “misstatements” in just two and a half years and still be considered even vaguely competent? If these are not lies, then Donald Trump is clearly delusional and/or mentally defficient, and thus unqualified and incapable of doing this job, and should be removed from office.
Maybe report on that.