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The Mainstream Media Won’t Tell You This
Article

The Mainstream Media Won’t Tell You This

Peddle misinformation. Cry “conspiracy” when no one else reports it. Repeat.

The Atlantic, 2020


Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Analytical
  • Applicable
  • Bold

Recommendation

British politician and broadcaster Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party, stood beside a fishing boat and spoke directly into a camera. He suggested that the French navy helped illegal migrants enter British waters. In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Farage’s video garnered 250,000 views on YouTube and went out to his 1.5 million Twitter followers. As Helen Lewis writes in The Atlantic, the activist political right has recognized and eagerly exploited this kind of “Potemkin journalism” since 2009. Such stories misuse social media and perpetuate people’s distrust of authority and of the mainstream media. Such misleading broadsides have one primary purpose: to sow doubt.

Take-Aways

  • The assertion that the mainstream media won’t cover a particular story fans the flames of conspiracy theories.
  • “Potemkin journalism” has little in common with traditional journalism.
  • After creating “birtherism,” Donald Trump went on to promote Potemkin journalism.

About the Author

Helen Lewis, former deputy editor of the New Statesman, is the author of Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights.


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