At the time this article went to press, the US election was believed to be inconclusive. U.S. polls still show Biden leading, but in the past had accurately predicted the election of Trump in 2016 as well as the Brexit referendum “Democracy Institute” released the final poll, the national support for Trump with 48% to Biden’s 47%, the final prediction of the electoral vote is that Trump will with 326 votes to Biden’s 212.
At this final stage, CNN, which has been lopsided toward Biden, published an article by Scott Jennings, who said, “Trump’s record is clear, not only lowering U.S. tax rates, but also supporting U.S. soldiers and showing enemies that the U.S. is capable of taking care of them, so he deserves a second term. The Wall Street Journal also published a joint article by two media personalities, Maria Bartiromo and James Freeman, saying that although Trump often says “things a president shouldn’t say,” he has never trampled on the rights of Americans and has defended American freedom and prosperity, which is good for the world.
The lopsidedness of the American media during the campaign broke through a bit in the end, perhaps because media people began to realize that the situation was not good for Biden and wanted to restore the media’s reputation.
Despite the signs of Trump’s reversal, I am still not so optimistic about his victory. In addition to the polls, more importantly, the US mainstream media and social media have almost overwhelmingly derided Biden in this election campaign, using extreme terms to call Trump a fascist who is destroying democracy, for example. The Biden family’s computer-gate has been deliberately covered up or defended with qualifiers. Almost all Americans are exposed to these media on a daily basis or exchange information on social media, and the influence of the media cannot be underestimated, otherwise why would Biden and his sons be able to keep their mouths shut about computer-gate?
It has been argued that to say that the media is biased in favor of Biden presupposes that the computer-gate scoop is considered credible, and if the media judges that the evidence provided by computer-gate is insufficient and chooses to delete the post or refuse to publish it, then it cannot be said to be biased.
Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States, considered back then that although the Constitution established a national system of government with separation of powers, for the vast majority of the population, without any direct power that could be manipulated in their hands, they would end up with nothing. With this thought in mind, Jefferson worked to promote the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects freedom of speech, arguing that “the people should be allowed to hear everything that is true and false, and then make a correct judgment.”
Yes, even falsehoods should be heard by the people. Even if the mainstream media does not find the New York Post story credible, it must be quoted and analyzed, not avoided as if it did not exist.
This has been my credo for decades as a media professional, and it is also my confidence in the American mainstream media. The American media, though divided into left and right, will report the news as long as it is news, while the commentaries can have their own positions and different views.
At the end of October, the U.S. third-quarter GDP rose 33.1% quarter-on-quarter, and the unemployment rate was 7.9% in September.
China’s official statistics have never been propaganda under Party leadership, and the annual GDP growth estimates are divinely accurate, so who on earth would believe the numbers from the Chinese statistics bureau?
The U.S. mainstream media downplayed the news of an economic rebound, naturally based on the a priori notion that they didn’t want to favor Trump’s candidacy; comparing China’s propaganda numbers wouldn’t have been unknowingly misleading to the public. But that’s what they did.
What disappointed and frightened me most about the US election process was that the mainstream media and social media, which hold the majority of influence, abandoned their responsibility to be objective, impartial and independent, and like the Chinese Communist Party media, they took sides.
Since the founding of the United States, it has been able to correct its mistakes better than any other country, relying on its abundant freedom of speech and independent public opinion. If the independence of the media is sacrificed, society will go down the dark road from here on out.
It is my hope that the newly elected President of the United States will address and correct the distortions of the American media head-on, rather than share the interests of the media and those with vested interests.
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