Matt Negrin’s campaign to ban “election deniers” from television news failed to achieve his original goal, which was to prevent a significant number of Americans from believing the lie that Donald Trump didn’t lose the presidential election to Joe Biden.
Instead, it has provoked a persistent debate over the role of political journalists, along with illustrating how television news and the politicians who depend upon its cameras have changed.
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enigma58
It has long been an ethical requirement for journalists that we do not become advocates. While a case can definitely be made that those who deny the election loss of former President Donald Trump are misinformed, it is not a case which journalists should be making, either by decrying any criticism of the election process or silencing those who choose to deny the validity of the election's outcome. In fact, criticism of our election process is what keeps elections relevant and honest, and it makes a sham of journalistic integrity to call those who challenge elections "liar" and "deniers".
Historically, most hotly contested elections are challenged, with many citizens long holding the belief that the outcome was falsified. The Presidential election loss of Samuel Tilden to Rutherford B. Hayes was long considered by many Democrats to have been fraudulent. The House of Representative election of John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson in 1824 was condemned as a travesty, bought and paid for by the Second Bank of the United States. U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, claiming voter suppression, called for U.N. oversight of our elections after the loss of Vice President Al Gore to George W. Bush, and Hillary Clinton and many of her supporters styled themselves as "resistors" against what they condemned as an illegitimate electoral college win by Donald Trump.
Curiously, most of those "deniers" were revealed, in time, to be partially or wholly correct. So it may also be true for the reelection loss of Donald Trump. As poet and political philosopher John Milton said, if the facts are allow free roam of the field of intellectual combat, truth will win.
Wednesday, June 23, 2021 Report this