SUJAY GUPTA
sujay@herald-goa.com
PERUGIA (Italy): The obsession with Donald Trump is clearly
a good obsession. It has made media, especially American media introspect and
re-energise their newsrooms to keep doing what they do best, to recalibrate and
catch up the new needs to covering a America which is changing. But
refreshingly, its journalists (or at least those who travelled to Perugia to
speak about the Trump administration) are holding truth to power by solely
doing what they have to do. As Cameron Barr, the Managing Editor of the
Washington Post said in his talk, at the historic Sala De Notari, where poets,
playwright and musicians across generations have congregated, “We are not at
war with Trump, we are at work.”
It’s easy to imagine why Trump weighs so heavy. Across days,
there have been three big Trump related sessions – “America- the Whole World is
watching”, Why Trump is the best thing to happen to journalism and finally the
big lecture by the Washing Post Managing Editor, Cameron Barr “Covering
President Trump: Reporting the truth in an era of alternative facts”
Journalist and Author
Allan Freidman puts down three reasons for Trumps win a) A poor rival in
Hillary b) exploiting fear and anger, and then came the bombshell, point c) The
Russian Involvement with circumstantial evidence of hacking into Hilary Clinton’s
data. “The Russia gate can undo President Trump” said Friedman, who has just
released his first book on the Trump Presidency in Italian with the English
version due out in June “This is not America”.
He said that the President’s actions were reflective of his own
inadequacies and his sense of insecurity, which makes him turn into a bully.
Friedman went to the extent of describing him as a pathological narcissist.
Andrew Spannaus, who was on the panel, sparred and agreed
with Friedman. Spannaus is a freelance journalist and strategic analyst based
in Milan. His book on the U.S. elections “Perchè vince Trump” (“Why Trump is
Winning”) was published in June 2016. He said Trump cannot be blamed for where
he is now. The process that led to his emergence needs to be examined. “The
underlying process (of governance) left out large parts of America. People
voted even though Trump has a problem and the democrats had no response. He is the effect, not the cause”, Spannaus
argued, and he said things which appealed to the marginalised sections of
America, like bringing back industrial jobs, diverting the spends on war to
rebuild America and so on. Fiercely countering Friedman’s assertion that the
Russians influenced the outcome, Spannaus said, “Trump is not a Russian agent.
We are seeing shadows”. He explained if Hilary took so much money from
GoldmanSachs to give speeches, that’s not a Russian problem.
Friedman fiercely countered this. The relation with Russia
and that of understanding Trump and Putin is central to understanding the
future of America (these words were however said a day before Trump attacked
Syria and Russia termed this as a one step from war with Russia). “It’s a
documented fact. The Russians hacked Hillary’s digital assets, the results of
which went to Wikileaks and Trump used the information put out by Wikileaks, to
attack Hillary.
And they both agreed that three Presidents before Obama
starting with the Bushes and ending with Clinton, chipped away at the benefits
of welfare given to Americans, thereby increasing the distance of the people
with government
But Friedman and Spannuas agreed that there was no basis of
Trump’s claims that “Trump Towers” was wire taped by the Obama administration
before the elections. Friedman ended on a very grim note when he said, We are
dealing with loonies in the Trump administration with hawks taking decisions.
The news of the removal of Steven Bannon from the National Security Council had
come in before this discussion was on and Friedman said that it showed that
even this administration needed to course correct. ‘Trump is paving the way for
America to lose influence”, Friedman concluded.
But Trump is hardly the runaway train without any control.
Washington Post Managing Editor, Cameron Barr, in his keynote address,
“Covering President Trump: Reporting the truth in an era of alternative facts”,
made the most potent counter case to anyone even suggesting that American media
is getting undermined and marginalised by Trump. He did so by simply, and
eloquently presenting these facts 1) The then National Security Advisor Michael
Flynn had to be removed by Trump due to clear reporting by the Washington Post
that he had misled the vice president about contacts with Russian officials and
it was subsequently discovered that he was paid by Russian and other entities for non government
services (like speeches) which were not initially disclosed 2) Michael Flynn
denied this to Washington Post and when the paper persisted with this line of
investigation after holding the story, Flynn buckled 3) The White House tried
to get Post not to disclose the fact that Flynn had initially denied and that
Barr, as Managing Editor, told the White
House that this information could not be denied to his readers 4)Flynn had to
resign.
Barr also emphasizes that when the White House had to
explain its failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) from the
House floor, it reached out to the Washington Post and New York Times,
signifying that it recognised these institutions as being the watchdogs and
influencers of public opinion in America.
Barr’s address gave many of us hope that if strong newspaper
institutions hold their ground and do their job, authoritarian regimes will
have a limited life. At least in Perugia, among the world’s best journalists,
Donald, did not Trump.
