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Trump's win a tight slap on 'Prestitute Journalism'
Saumen Sarker
Trump's win a tight slap on 'Prestitute Journalism'
PHOTO : TIWN

"The joke is on the (mainstream) American and World media: they failed to see the tidal wave building under them, preferring to go with their prejudices". Haven't we seen this before in India in 2014? Mainstream media went all out against Modi and was left with egg on its face. But the shameless English language mainstream media which has lost its credibility refuses to learn its lessons".

The above quote is from a famous Indian Journalist and Political Analyst R. Jagganathan.

Frankly speaking,during my interactions with majority of seniors journalists and editors in India and USA - most of these so called seniors are no less corrupt minded than politicians. 

'Prestitute Jpurnalism' is a word refers to a person in powerful media houses who "sells out" for some personal gain, betraying his/her supposed journalist ideals.

India's paid media journalism, biased media houses like NDTV and others barked for years against Narendra Modi before he became Prime Minister of India. After Modi became Prime Minister, majority of India's 'All-Subject-Matter-Experts" (ASME) had to bite their shoes in dispair.

Same type of  American Journalists in CNN, New York Times, Washington Times  like India's Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt, Prannoy Roy are now biting dust with Trunp's election victory in USA.

The Outsider has won. The Establishment has lost. The “deplorables” of the United States of America under the wayward leadership of Donald Trump, the renegade Republican who was disowned by many in his party, is the next President of the world’s oldest democracy.

With nearly all US media houses calling it for Trump, pending any last minute miracle, it is now safe to say that the US has just elected the first man who has never held public office as its Commander-in-Chief. It has declined to elect its first woman President.

Trump not only defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton but the entire Left-Liberal media, the pollsters, a White House determined to stop him (from President Obama to his wife Michelle and Vice-President Joe Biden), Wall Street, Hollywood, the Democratic Billionaire’s Club, the Republican aristocracy and assorted critics from all over the world, especially Europe.

But it was not Trump alone who did it. This vote has come from below, largely from the frustration of the white male voter who has been alienated from the elite. The white voter believes that party elites – both Democrat and Republican – have focused more on the minorities and the super-rich, leaving them high and dry. More important, Clinton’s expected women vote did not materialise. Not surprising, though, in hindsight. If the rust belt is angry, it hardly follows that the women of that belt will be unsympathetic to what their men care about.

This is significant. Trump cannot have won if his personal failings and boorish behaviour had been the critical factor in this election. Nor did Clinton lose because of her own failings, including the email scandal. That voters decided to ignore this shows that in politics, it is issues that count, especially when there is a significant difference between the two options. Trump promised change, while Clinton promised more of the same. So, if the prime desire was for change, whether the guy promising it has loose morals or a sterling character hardly matters. We have seen this in India often enough, where even convicted criminals and corrupt politicians keep winning the votes. Trump is the American affirmation of this same sentiment. When more important issues count, your own failings don’t.

The media, by its constant and obtuse criticism of Trump, was possibly a major factor in Trump’s victory. In fact, it is possible to say that the stronger the media’s criticism became, the more strongly the Trump voter was determined to stay with him. As the trends became clearer, CNN anchors were asking themselves where they went wrong in presuming that Trump had no path to 270. But the joke is on them: they failed to see the tidal wave building under them, preferring to go with their prejudices.

The mistake is to believe that when voters are being offered a real choice, personal factors will be decisive. These things matter only when you are choosing between two candidates who promise the same. Perhaps, if Bernie Sanders had been the candidate, the result may have been different, for Sanders promised change, but not Clinton.

It is, in fact, possible to surmise that if one man is attacked so consistently, people will begin to wonder if there is an agenda behind it all. People know motivated criticism when they see it. We saw this in India in 2014, when the entire English media went hammer-and-tongs against Narendra Modi, and look what happened.

While Trump is a wayward candidate as against the real strengths and commitment that Prime Minister Modi brings to his job, the underlying reasons for their victories are the same. The media wore blinkers, and so did the Democratic and Republican party establishment.

It is worth speculating on why the pollsters got it so wrong, when all of them were predicting an over 65 percent chance of Clinton winning the election. It is unlikely that the polls were rigged or didn’t target a good sample. The simple truth could be this: the shy Trump vote, people who were reluctant to say they may vote for Trump got understated. This is one more lesson for the media: when you demonise someone so much, people prefer not to state their preferences openly. People say politically correct things when their voting intentions may be quite different.

Needless to say 'Prestitute Journalism' or in other words the 'prostitution journalism' once again defeated after Modi's win in 2014.

'All-Subject-Matter-Experts" (ASME) is a term I coined for these 'prestitute' journalists who are no less corrupt and ignorant than the fellow politicians.

(Partial content courtsey : World News and Indian Journalist and Political Analyst R. Jagganathan)

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