So, let’s talk about The Donald. Let’s not talk about his obscene, blanket remarks labeling illegal immigrants as criminals bent on destroying society or the fact he thinks Islam somehow has a hatred for the U.S. that nobody else can see. Rather, let’s talk about the fact he can make his massive media attention devoid of any actual news to work to his advantage.
The media’s love fest with Donald Trump should not be all that shocking. The media, like any other business, needs a profit, and the media can only do that by gaining ratings and sponsors. No one can put eyeballs to television screens like a celebrity mogul who says whatever he wants.
Where media outlets fail to knock Trump down just like any other candidate is their inability to get him to answer a question in a straightforward manner. Whenever the alphabet soup of an answer comes out of The Donald’s mouth without any real coherence, the interviewer will usually go onto the next question without posing much resistance.
However, it goes beyond blaming the media, because Trump himself is playing the networks like a finely tuned violin, especially last week with him clogging the news cycle with nearly every Clinton family controversy that ever graced a 1990s newspaper, along with new attacks against Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. They gave him multiple hours of coverage on the 24-hour news cycle.
More importantly, these attacks were the kind Trump thoroughly enjoys because it gave him control of the conversation once again. In Trump’s campaign, not all news is good news. For example, Trump in the news cycle for refusing to disclose his tax returns is not-so-good news. It puts Trump on the defensive side, a place he doesn’t want to be no matter how much of a “counterpuncher” he claims he is.
This is how Trump utilizes the media to his advantage: a smokescreen to distract from the continual and justified criticisms about his policies he wishes to create if he were to reach the presidency. It is much easier attacking Hillary Clinton or a prominent GOP official than discussing the details of his plan to build a wall across the southern border.
Instead, we are stuck with a smokescreen of shallowness where none of the issues can be discussed. Even Trump’s issues of immigration take a backseat to the insults and conspiracy theories being thrown around by the candidate.
Right now, the only person it is benefitting is Trump, and until the media learns how to approach him differently, we will continue to face news cycles clogged with anything but actual prescriptions on how to make America greater than it already is.
Kevin Foster is a UF political science senior. His column appears on Tuesdays.
