13 Sep 24 | News and features, Newsletters, United States
Who could have predicted that Donald Trump would unite George Orwell and Taylor Swift in the form of an Index newsletter? But that’s the strange world in which we’re living.
This week I’ve been obsessively telling my Index colleagues about Laura Beers’ excellent book Orwell’s Ghosts, which is full of insights about today’s political climate through the lens of the Animal Farm author’s wisdom. One part that’s really stuck with me is the relationship between free speech and the truth, as Orwell saw it.
“Orwell could never endorse a world in which ‘alternative facts’ were given free rein,” Beers writes, reminding her readers about the famous Nineteen Eighty-Four line where Orwell describes freedom as the right to say that 2 + 2 = 4. As Beers points out, it is very much not the right to say that 2 + 2 = 5. Objective truth matters.
Anyone with even a passing interest in the US election will know that this week has been a goldmine for talking points on truth, lies and misinformation. It is the perfect moment to be reading this book.
When ABC News hosted a debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump this week, it was also the first time they’d met in person. After shaking hands, the debate began with gusto, Harris quickly getting under Trump’s skin. What was particularly interesting about this debate though was the on-the-go fact-checking live on air. It’s something we’ve never seen to this degree, and the fact that ABC feel it is needed now is telling.
On the issue of abortion, Trump asserted — not for the first time — that babies in the USA are being executed after being born. Moderators took down the false claim: “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”
Commentators on the right were quick to denounce this new era of fact-checking. It was unfairly skewed towards Trump and they were picking him apart more than Harris. There is of course a simple explanation for that, which is that he told more lies. According to CNN, Trump delivered more than 30 false claims while Harris gave one, although additional claims of hers were misleading or lacking in context.
The award for top untruth of the night goes perhaps to Trump’s claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating people’s pet cats and dogs. The internet quickly got to work with memes of The Simpsons’ dog Santa’s Little Helper giving the side eye to cat Snowball II. But ABC moderators were speedier than the meme-makers and set the story straight live on air, confirming that there had been “no credible reports” of this alleged neighbourhood pet buffet.
Of course, the lie didn’t come out of thin air. As The Economist breaks down, the “allegation had been circulating in right-wing circles on social media, boosted by Elon Musk”. Amid anti-immigrant sentiment in some circles, a Facebook post “cited fourth-hand knowledge” about the cat-eating claim. A half-truth is still a lie. And when it comes to a Facebook post based on fourth-hand knowledge being pedalled by a would-be (and former) president, we’re not even close to the realms of a half-truth. Two plus two does not equal four. Two plus two equals Lassie for lunch.
Social media has played a starring role in the misinformation story. Perhaps now is a good time to move on to X owner and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s post directed at pop superstar Taylor Swift.
Following the TV debate, Swift endorsed Harris in an Instagram post to her 284 million followers (to Trump’s 26.5 million and Harris’s 16.9 million, just to demonstrate the sway she has), where she talked about her concern over AI-generated content claiming to show her endorsing Donald Trump. Beneath a picture of the Shake It Off singer holding her ragdoll cat Benjamin Button, she wrote: “The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth,” and signed off “Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady,” riffing off the sexist trope used by Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance towards Harris and others.
While not distracted by SpaceX (one of his other companies), which yesterday launched the first ever privately-funded spacewalk, Musk found the time to post: “Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life.” If we know anything about Swift it’s that Musk is about to become the villain in an upcoming hit single.
Trump also reacted to Swift endorsing Harris. He said the popstar would “probably pay a price for it in the marketplace”.
Swift might say: “Haters gonna hate”. But when powerful billionaires and presidential candidates are deriding cultural figures for having a political voice, and objective truth becomes optional in a democracy, there is a problem. As this and other elections continue to unfold, it’s everyone’s responsibility to make sure that two plus two continue to equal four.
21 Aug 24 | Americas, News and features, United States
Reframing the US government’s relationship with the media and placing free speech and democracy in the firing line is at the heart of Project 2025, the 922-page policy plan supported by over 400 conservatives and led by the Heritage Foundation thinktank.
Contributed to by more than 100 of Donald Trump’s former administration officials, the document lays out a comprehensive vision for the next conservative US administration, and seeks to fundamentally change the nature of government’s relationship with the media.
The US has one of the most highly developed mass media networks in the world, TV being the most consumed. The “big three” – Fox, MSNBC and CBS – dominate the mainstream independent sphere and are often criticised for a consistently “far left” or “far right” bias; public government-supported networks PBS and NPR, meanwhile, promise to provide unbiased factual reporting.
Many on the right, including former President Donald Trump, accuse NPR and PBS of left-leaning bias and call for ending government-funded media. Republican lawmakers’ past efforts to defund NPR and PBS have gained traction with Project 2025.
But defunding public media could lead to local news station closures, increasing the influence of biased reporting from major networks like Fox, which the left claims is a mouthpiece for Trump’s political agenda.
Trump has always tried to reframe free speech as biased and has sought to place journalists in the news itself in the pursuit of delegitimisation.
As explained by Russian economist Sergei Guriev and American political scientist Daniel Treisman, authors of Spin Dictators, the new generation of autocracy is diverse. While the primary goal remains the same – monopolising political power – this new power is maintained “by repressing any opposition, controlling all communications, [and] punishing critics.”
A skilful ruler can control people by reshaping their beliefs about the world, fooling them into compliance and even enthusiastic approval. “In place of harsh repression, the new dictators manipulate information. Like spin doctors in a democracy, they spin the news to engineer support. They are spin dictators.”
A closer look at Chapter 8 of Project 2025, with its policy proposals against public media and press freedom and its potential to endanger journalists both domestically and abroad, reveals these strategies and beliefs in action.
Mike Gonzales, a journalist and senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, lays out the plan for how a future administration could defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
The CPB operates as a private nonprofit corporation and is the primary financial backer of public radio and television, using tax dollars to finance public media institutions to ensure Americans have access to free, local public media. While fully funded by the federal government, the organisation doesn’t engage in programme production, distribution, or station ownership.
At the centre of Gonzales’s case against the CPB is the need to defund National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). The claim is that the nonprofit media organisations have a liberal bias, and the country cannot afford to spend half a billion dollars on “leftist opinion”. The “government should not be compelling the conservative half of the country to pay for the suppression of its own views,” his document asserts.
NPR and PBS have faced longstanding criticism from Republican politicians on the basis of an alleged liberal bias. Republican nominee Donald Trump took to Twitter earlier this year, writing, “No more funding for NPR, a total scam!” He claimed that the organisation is “Only used to damage Trump’” and that “they are a liberal disinformation machine,” after a former editor at NPR criticised Katherine Maher, NPR’s new CEO, for fostering a liberal bias.
Gonzales asserts that a Project 2025 defunding of public media would not lead to the end of such organisations. “Defunding CPB would by no means cause NPR or PBS – or other public broadcasters that benefit from CPB funding – to file for bankruptcy,” he argues, “The membership model and support from corporations and foundations would enable these broadcasters to continue thriving.”
David Liberman, a media studies professor who has been covering the industry for decades agrees: “Project 2025’s proposal to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting falls into a familiar trap. The Heritage Foundation believes that it would undermine what it calls the “leftist opinion” it perceives on PBS and National Public Radio. But the initiative is mostly symbolic: little federal money goes to their most controversial newscasts.”.
Only 8% of NPR’s revenues actually come from federal funds and 15% for PBS. Cutting the amount of cash the government gives them would likely have a detrimental, but not fatal, effect. But the CPB has another function, it supports almost 1,500 smaller stations including rural stations across the USA. According to the CPB, rural public broadcasting stations heavily rely on its Community Service and that’s where 70% of CPB’s annual appropriation goes.
Liberman, who has reported on these populations firsthand, adds: “The entities that would be most hurt are independently owned NPR stations—particularly the ones that provide local journalism. The money from CPB accounts for about 12% of their budgets. The lost contributions would be especially damaging to stations in rural news deserts that have lost their daily newspapers.”
This not only diminishes the visibility of local issues but also deprives communities of trusted journalism, making more accessible news outlets such as social media platforms like X and biased news organisations like Fox the primary sources people turn to for information,
Defunding and denouncing public media sources like PBS and NPR not only has a financial impact, but also a profoundly chilling effect on public broadcasters, setting a dangerous precedent for the topics and individuals that they cover or give a voice to. Gonzales concludes that NPR and PBS are “non-educational.”
While the argument for maintaining unbiased public media is valid, penalising free speech and dismissing information as lacking educational value simply because it doesn’t align with the Republican Party’s values blurs the boundaries of governmental influence and challenges the distinction between fact and opinion in the public media sector.
But it is the attack on local journalism that is the most pernicious.
09 Feb 24 | News and features, Opinion, Ruth's blog, United Kingdom
I was a British MP from 2015 until 2019.
I was friends with Jo Cox and I knew Sir David Amess. I was involved in the effort to protect Rosie Cooper and was also a target for a huge amount of abuse and too many threats of violence to count. So the news in the last week, after months of stories about politicians being targeted because of a war thousands of miles away, of more reports of threats of violence to politicians at home and abroad isn’t just a news story for me – it’s been my life.
I love politics, for me it’s the main vehicle in a democratic society to change the world. It allows us to support people who need it and to challenge the status-quo. Elections are the frontline in a battle of ideas about the type of country and world we want to live in. Words dominate and debate makes all of us better. Elections are the bedrock of our democracy and our rights to freedom of expression. For me this is everything. Which means the participants need to feel safe to make those arguments – to challenge each other, to debate. This is the ultimate test of how robust our democracy really is.
However, recent events have shed light on a concerning trend: the increasing need for special police protection for individual politicians or even their withdrawal from political life due to threats on their lives because of what they believe.
Politicians like Mike Freer MP in the United Kingdom and Nikki Haley in the US, the last remaining serious challenger to Donald J Trump for the Republican Party nomination, have become appalling examples of the risks individuals face for daring to voice their convictions.
Mike Freer, the Member of Parliament for Finchley and Golders Green, has been subjected to vile threats and intimidation, culminating in his constituency office being firebombed. Unable to persuade him to change his views, extremists have sought to silence him through fear and intimidation. In response Mike Freer has understandably announced his retirement from politics at the next election.
Similarly, Nikki Haley, the Republican Party nominee vying for the presidency of the United States of America, has been thrust into a whirlwind of threats and intimidation due to her challenging Donald J. Trump for the nomination. She finds herself the focus of extremists who seek to undermine her campaign through fear and violence. Faced with the grim reality of constant danger, Haley has felt compelled to request secret service protection — a sobering indication of the challenges confronting modern democracy even at the highest levels of political discourse.
These stories are unfortunately increasingly common, British politicians now have a security assessment as standard. American politicians in a leadership role are provided with security protections. This is now common practice in nearly every western democracy.
The threats faced by Freer, Haley, and countless others are not isolated incidents but symptoms of a broader trend towards intolerance and extremism. In an era marked by polarisation and ideological division, the space for civil discourse is rapidly shrinking, replaced by a climate of hostility and intimidation. This not only undermines the democratic process but also erodes the very foundations of our society.
Since 1689 parliamentary privilege, otherwise known as protected free speech for parliamentarians, has been enshrined in British law, ensuring legal protections for political debate and opinion. It is an incredibly important core tenet of freedom of political speech. But this is for nothing if people are protected from being sued for making a political point – but not protected from violence.
As defenders of freedom of expression, it is incumbent upon us to confront this trend head-on and reaffirm our commitment to protecting the voices of those who dare to speak out, protecting those that seek to engage in our democracy. Politicians like Mike Freer and Nikki Haley should not have to live in fear for simply expressing their beliefs. We must stand in solidarity with them and demand that they be afforded the safety and security they deserve as public servants.
Politicians are the custodians of our national conversation – in turn we must be custodians of them.
29 Sep 23 | Media Freedom, News and features, Opinion, Ruth's blog, United States
The threats to freedom of expression are multifaceted and seem to be coming from all directions. Every day we hear about a new international threat to freedom of expression, a new SLAPP or a new campaign to silence or cancel. These threats are compounded by those who are seeking to spread misinformation and propaganda campaigns to shape the national and international narrative to suit their purposes.
From the dark recesses of the internet and the spread of deep fake videos to trolls spreading disinformation and national governments, usually the tyrants, attempting to control information sources and restricted access to media.
However, we expect protections against these threats from our democratically elected leaders and the countries that they run. Take the United States, with all the protections afforded by the First Amendment. Donald Trump and his administration unfortunately never seem to have got the memo. As president he attacked the media every day and undermined the cross-party consensus that has afforded journalists protection for over 200 years. And he hasn’t changed his stance since he left office, attacking mainstream media outlets who dare to do their job and challenge his version of reality.
And this week he has taken these attacks a step further, threatening to withdraw the licences of those media outlets he perceives to be critical of him should he be reelected in the 2024 presidential election. He literally threatened to shut them down, naming NBC and MSNBC as his initial targets.
It’s not even clear that the President has the power to do this. But the threats alone are enough to undermine media freedom in the US.
In Trump’s eyes, critical media is dishonest, corrupt and lying. He’s even accused them of treason in his angry posts on TruthSocia, his own social media platform. This attitude towards the media has an incredibly damaging effect on democracy; we’ve seen it happen in country after country. Afterall it wasn’t too long ago that President Putin was referring to critical media in Russia as liars and traitors – and now there is no independent media left within Russia’s borders.
Can you imagine a situation in which NBC News and MSNBC have to operate outside the US’s borders? Sadly, Russia has shown us that the independent media can disappear in no time at all.
Independent journalism is a key element of every democracy. Journalists provide the ultimate check and balance to power. They can shine a spotlight on corruption and speak truth to power. And of course, with that power they have the responsibility to report the news objectively and impartially.
But in turn for their professionalism and impartiality we have a duty to support them against attacks from those with an agenda. Media freedom is the first defence of our democracy. We must all stand against Donald Trump’s ongoing threats and make it clear that media freedom is vital at home and abroad.
