Wider World by CS

Clinton's win matters to media

November 07, 2016 12:59 
By Shakhawat Liton 
The Daily Star 
Asia News Network

Hillary Clinton has won a landslide in the newspapers endorsement race.

She has been endorsed by more than 200 newspapers and periodicals while her rival Donald Trump by only seven.

The records show American newspapers in an unprecedented manner have rejected Trump, the Republican presidential nominee.

This happened as newspapers leaning towards Republican camp have shunned Trump labelling him "unfit" for the presidency and "dangerous" for the USA, just like many Republican veterans.

Clinton was fortunate to receive endorsements, even by the newspapers traditionally Republican, apparently because the Republican Party picked “the wrong presidential candidate”.

For example, some major newspapers -- The Dallas Morning News, Arizona Republic, San Diego Union-Tribune, Columbus Dispatch, Omaha World-Herald, and Cincinnati Enquirer -- have broken a streak of Republican endorsements to choose Clinton.

The Arizona Republic editorial board endorsed Clinton. It was the Democratic presidential nominee endorsement in the paper's 126 year history.

In Ohio, the Enquirer had supported Republicans for president for nearly a century. The Dallas Morning News hadn't backed a Democrat for the White House since before World War II.

The Detroit News abandoned Republicans for the first time in 143 years by endorsing Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.

Breaking its 34-year tradition of not endorsing a candidate in the presidential race, US Today, a widely circulated national daily, took sides in this election. Though it did not endorse any specific candidate, but urged its readers not to vote for Donald Trump.

Trump, the US Today editorial board said, is "erratic", "ill-equipped to be commander in chief", a "serial liar" and has "coarsened the national dialogue".

Widely reputed monthly magazine The Atlantic perceived Trump to be a danger to the USA and broke its silence endorsing Hillary Clinton. For the third time in its 160 year history it made a presidential nominee endorsement. 

The last time The Atlantic took sides in a presidential election was in 1964, when it sided with Democrat nominee Lyndon B Johnson due to similar fears about his opponent Barry Goldwater.

Its only other presidential endorsement came 104 years earlier when it backed Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

The Chicago Sun-Times had stopped making presidential endorsements in 2012, but reversed course this year endorsing Clinton. It explained “the best way to avert a train wreck is to wave a warning flag as soon as possible”.

Following their tradition, internationally reputed newspapers New York Times and Washington Post endorsed Clinton.

Of the two, the NYT has been endorsing presidential candidate since 1860. It first endorsed Abraham Linclon, the Republican presidential nominee. It kept continuing to endorse Republican nominees for years. Then it started endorsing Democratic nominees and then again Republican. But since 1960s, it has kept endorsing Democrats. In the last 156 years, this news organisation endorsed 39 presidential nominees. Of them 24 won.

Another record is that the top 100 dailies by 2016 circulation, 55 have endorsed Clinton. And only one, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, has endorsed Donald Trump.

The Economist on November 3 in an article styled "American newspapers resoundingly reject Donald Trump" explained the reason behind the unprecedented endorsements.

"Newspaper endorsements tend to favour the party out of power, perhaps because editors are enthralled by challengers' charisma," it writes.

When Barack Obama burst onto the scene in his 2008 run, he charmed 71 percent of the newspapers. Things didn't work out quite so well the second time around, with Obama having to make do with just 56 percent of endorsements in 2012, according to The Economist.

"This time, despite eight years of Democratic rule, editorial boards fearful of a Trump presidency have overwhelmingly backed Clinton,” says The Economist.

It says as an inanimate newspaper -- and a British one to boot -- The Economist cannot vote in the American elections. But if it could, it would cast its hypothetical vote for Clinton and it would not be the only one.

It is true that The Economist would not be the only one as The Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper, on November 2 in an editorial urged Americans not to vote for Donald Trump.

"This US election, unlike any since the Second World War, is white knuckle time for the rest of the world. Foreign governments don't want to interfere in your democracy, so they can't say what they really think about Trump. But we can. We're terrified," wrote the Globe and Mail.

CRUSADER & NAZI PARTY SUPPORT TRUMP!

In the final week of the most divisive presidential contest in living memory, Trump has received the backing of the Ku Klux Klan's official newspaper. It advocates extremist reactionary. The Crusader devoted its entire front page to an editorial calling for its readers to “Make America Great Again!”

But this support generated huge controversy as it claimed: "America was founded as a White Christian Republic. And as a White Christian Republic it became great."

The Trump campaign criticised the article. "Mr Trump and the campaign denounce hate in any form," the campaign said in a statement. "This publication is repulsive and their views do not represent the tens of millions of Americans who are uniting behind our campaign."

Interestingly, Trump has also received the tacit support of the American Nazi Party. Its chief Rocky Suhayda in August agreed, declaring on his radio show that Trump offers "real opportunity" to build the white nationalist movement.

More recently, Trump's rallies have been marred by a series of racially charged incidents.

MEDIA RIGGING ELECTION?

The whopping endorsements for Clinton by newspapers, has prompted Trump to come up with his pet theory: "Media rigging election!" The Trump campaign and pro-Trump media outlets have been arguing that there is a clear media bias and media is explicitly working with the Clinton campaign to defeat Trump.

Trump has also launched a blistering attack on the media since the beginning of his campaign. He has insulted and vilified the press and has made his opposition to the media a centre piece of his campaign. He has routinely labelled the press as “dishonest” and “scum” and singled out individual news organisations and journalists. He even threatened to sue some newspapers and to tighten defamation laws against the media.

The continuous threat has prompted the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) to take an unprecedented step, accusing Trump of "betraying first amendment values".

If Trump should win the presidency it would represent a threat to press freedom, said CPJ, the US-based press freedom watchdog, in a statement last month.

Freedom of the press has been a key principle in American public life since the American Revolution with truth long established as an absolute defence to any accusation of libel.

The first amendment states that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”. It is a foundation stone of democracy in the United States.

This was most recently asserted by the Supreme Court in 1964, in an unanimous decision in New York Times vs Sullivan.

In its ruling, the court held that any public figure suing for libel must prove that a defamatory statement was made with actual malice, “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not”.

In numerous cases, the US apex court has also upheld the freedom of the press.

CLINTON OR TRUMP?

Despite unprecedented rejection by the media, Trump still remains as a prospective contender for the White House.

In the ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll for example, Clinton was ahead of Trump by 12 points on 23 October, but that lead had been narrowing significantly in recent days. The gap between them is now four points, according to NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released yesterday.

Amid such a situation, Americans vote tomorrow to pick their next president. Who will have the last laugh Clinton or Trump? Whoever wins, it will matter a lot to the media. If Clinton wins, news media can claim their role justified. If Trump wins, history of the freedom of the press may be re-written as feared by many and credibility of news media may be questioned further.