“FAKE NEWS” AND PARALLEL POPULISMS: AN ANALYSIS OF MEDIA COVERAGE

OF TRUMP AND NETANYAHU’S ATTACKS ON THE PRESS

A Scholarly Thesis

Presented To

The Honors Tutorial College

Ohio University

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation from the Honors Tutorial College with the degree of

Bachelor of Science in Journalism

by

Lilli Sher

April 2020

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………………2

Introduction………………………………………………………………………...……………...4

Chapter One: Literature Review…………………………………………………………………..7

Chapter Two: Research Methods………………………………………………………………...36

Chapter Three: Haaretz Analysis………………………………………………………………...43

Chapter Four: The New York Times Analysis…………………………………………………....63

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….....99

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………111

Acknowledgments

I am so grateful to the many people who helped, guided, and supported me as I completed my undergraduate thesis.

First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Dr. Aimee Edmondson. She prompted me to look at my topic in new ways, and provided me with great structure, edits, input, and guidance – especially as my thesis topic evolved. I would also like to thank the other professors who provided immense support and guidance as I worked on my thesis: Dr. Susan

Burgess, whose expertise on law and society studies helped me frame my thesis, and whose encouragement and mentorship has meant a great deal to me; Professor Thomas Hodson, who urged me to conduct a comparative study of Israeli and American society in some capacity for my thesis; Dr. Nukhet Sandal, who helped refine my knowledge of Israeli society, history, and politics, and Dr. Bernhard Debatin, my academic advisor, for his support and guidance during my entire collegiate career.

I am grateful to the Honors Tutorial College for providing me with the most academically stimulating and vibrant four years of college that I ever could have imagined. Additionally, I was able to travel to Israel through funding from the College in May of 2019. I would like to thank

Dr. Roy Peled of the Haim Striks School of Law in Rishon Lezion; Dr. Adam Shinar of the

Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya; Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler of the Israel Democracy

Institute; Gideon Levy of Haaretz; Boaz Rakocz, CEO and founder of The Whistle factchecking mechanism, and Dr. Karine Nahon of the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya. Thank you all so much for taking the time to speak with me during my time in Israel. Without you all, my understanding of Israeli society, media, politics, and law would be greatly lacking, and I am extremely grateful.

2 Finally, I would like to thank my friends, family, and mentors for their endless support. I would particularly like to thank my mentors Tanya Conrath, Margaret Hutzel, and Sarah

Livingston; my parents Scott and Cheryl Sher, my siblings, my sister-in-law, and my cousins Jill

Kupferberg and Doug Simmons; and my friends Reiya Bhat, Hannah Bryan, Julie Ciotola, and

Hazel Goodburn for their support this year specifically. Thank you all so incredibly much.

3 Introduction

President Donald Trump enters a church called “The Church of Fake News.” The pews are filled with representatives of various mainstream media outlets such as CNN, as well as those from social justice movements like Black Lives Matter. The representative from CNN approaches him. With a roar, Trump begins to violently attack the CNN representative, and then starts to shoot and assault the other representatives seated in the church.

This is the fantasy of the far-right. The above scene is from a mock video that was screened at a three-day gathering of Trump supporters in October 2019.1 Threatening and delegitimizing rhetoric wielded toward media outlets has been a hallmark of Trump’s campaign and subsequent presidency.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel delegitimized the media in a similar manner since he rose to political prominence in the 1990s. At a rally in 1999, he led the crowd in chanting “haim ma fa’adim” (“they are afraid” in Hebrew) in explicit reference to the press.2

Before this, Netanyahu used violent, aggressive rhetoric against then-Prime Minister Yitzhak

Rabin, a Labor Party politician who engaged in the Oslo Accords, which attempted to broker peace between Israel and Palestine. Netanyahu, who did not support such a deal, engaged in rhetoric against Rabin, and claimed that it supported terrorism and did not care about Israel.

Many people believe that this rhetoric incited Rabin’s assassination at the hands of a Jewish anti- peace extremist.3

1 Rich McKay and Steve Holland, “White House reporters slam mock video of Trump killing journalists and critics,” Reuters, October 14, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-york-trump-video/white-house- reporters-slam-mock-video-of-trump-killing-journalists-and-critics-idUSKBN1WT0IP. 2 King Bibi. Directed by Dan Shadur. Jerusalem, Israel: Atzmor Productions, 2018. 3 Ibid.

4 Beyond their shared hatred of the press, both of these leaders faced impeachment and indictment at the time that this thesis was written. The U.S. House of Representatives approved articles of impeachment against Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of

Congress. Trump was acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate on these two counts of impeachment on February 5, 2020.4 Netanyahu was indicted on charges of bribery, breach of trust, and fraud in February of 2019.5

The relationship between the United States and Israel has also changed a great deal as

Trump and Netanyahu’s terms overlap. Since Trump took office, he moved the U.S. Embassy in

Israel from Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, released a controversial peace plan that gives Israel the green light to annex the majority of the West Bank, and pulled humanitarian aid from Palestine – all of which are unprecedented moves in U.S. foreign policy toward Israel. 6

Additionally, Trump and Netanyahu engage with “fake news” rhetoric in two different ways: By actively engaging in delegitimizing rhetoric toward the press, such claiming the media is engaged in a “witch hunt” against them and deeming all unfavorable coverage as “fake news” or otherwise fabricated, and by subverting the mainstream media through social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

In this thesis, I will analyze coverage of “fake news” as reported by the New York Times and Haaretz over a three-year period to illustrate how systemic media delegitimization functions as an arm of right-wing populism, and what this rhetoric reveals about the contemporary rise of right-wing populism. This will be achieved by focusing specifically on the rhetoric used by the

4 Elizabeth Janowski, “Timeline: Trump impeachment inquiry,” NBC News, October 16, 2019, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/timeline-trump-impeachment-inquiry-n1066691. 5 “Netanyahu Reelected: Everything You Need to Know About the Prime Minister's Corruption Scandals,” Haaretz, April 10, 2019, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-reelected-prime-minister-s-corruption-scandals- 1.7106396. 6 Alexander Griffing and Esther Solomon, “Trump, Israel and the Middle East: Mayhem, Betrayal and 'America First,'” Haaretz, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/EXT-INTERACTIVE-trump-iran-israel-1.8269016.

5 current leaders of the United States and Israel – respectively, President Donald Trump and

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – at the time that the analyzed stories were published. I will also comment on the changing nature of the relationship between the United States and Israel under these leaders. This study is pertinent because the particular flavor of right-wing populist beliefs espoused by Trump and Netanyahu are popular with other world leaders, such as Prime

Minister Modi of India, President Bolsonaro of Brazil, and Prime Minister Erdoğan of Turkey. It is essential for citizens to be aware of the pattern of isolationist, racist, and xenophobic rhetoric espoused by these leaders, and especially important for the press to serve as diligent watch dogs as these leaders attempt to undermine fundamental human and democratic rights.

In chapter one, I will present a review of literature on this topic, which includes a background of “fake news” in the United States, in Israel, and elsewhere, as well as brief overviews of Israeli and American freedom of expression case law and the political climate in each country. In chapter two, I will give an overview of the methodology used to guide the research conducted for this thesis – primarily, rhetorical analysis using a law and society studies lens. Chapter three presents an analysis of Haaretz coverage, and chapter four is an analysis of

New York Times coverage. Finally, a conclusion of the study and recommendations for journalists will be offered.

6 Chapter one: Literature Review

The American public, press, and academic spheres were shocked by the presidential election of Donald Trump in November 2016. Regardless of one’s political leanings, it is impossible to deny that Trump’s brazen attitude, inflammatory speech, and political views are unprecedented in the United States political experience.

The United States

How Democracies Die, published in 2019 by Harvard University political scientists

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, was borne out of the professors’ fears that the United States was slipping into the patterns of authoritarianism that they studied. Levitsky and Ziblatt define populist leaders as those who “…tend to deny the legitimacy of established parties, attacking them as undemocratic and even unpatriotic. They tell voters that the existing system is not really a democracy but instead has been hijacked, corrupted, or rigged by the elite. And they promise to bury that elite and return power to 'the people.'"7

The authors subsequently construct a table outlining the four key indicators of populist behavior: Rejection of (or weak commitment to) democratic rules of the game, denial of the legitimacy of political opponents, toleration or encouragement of violence, and readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents and media. The last tenant is most pertinent to this thesis, as it is exemplifies the tendency of authoritarian populist leaders to delegitimize the mainstream press. Levitsky and Ziblatt pose the following questions under the aforementioned tenant:

7 Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (New York: Penguin Books, 2019), 22.

7 • “Have they supported laws or policies that restrict civil liberties, such as

expanded libel or defamation laws, or laws restricting protest, criticism of the

government, or certain civic or political organizations?”

• “Have they threatened to take legal or other punitive action against critics in rival

parties, civil society or the media?”

• “Have they praised repressive measures taken by other governments, either in the

past or elsewhere in the world?”8

The first question regards laws concerning civil liberties. Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed to “open up our libel laws,” as he proclaimed at a rally in

Fort Worth, Texas, in February 2016.9 He continued this promise through his Twitter, with tweets accusing the New York Times as having "disgraced the media world. Gotten me wrong for two solid years. Change libel laws?” on March 30, 2017. White House Chief of Staff Reince

Priebus told a reporter "I think that's something we've looked at” when asked if the Trump administration was really considering trying to change the nation’s libel law.10 When a government is constantly at war with the mainstream media, a chilling effect can cloud free expression. This tactic was used by authoritarian Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, who engaged in multimillion-dollar defamation suits against media outlets and jailed journalists on charges of defamation during his ten-year reign.11

8 Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die, 23. 9 Jane E. Kirtley, “Getting to the Truth: Fake News, Libel Laws, and ‘Enemies of the American People,’” Human Rights, American Bar Association, Vol. 43 Issue 4, 2018. 10 Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die, 181-82. 11 Ibid., 181-82. Rafael Correa served as president of Educator from 2007 to 2017. Once a beloved politician, Correa ended his three-terms marked by various scandals, such as calling for an end to oil drilling while secretly allowing Chinese corporations to develop oil deposits in an Ecuadorian national park. Before the 2013 election, Correa pushed a law that stated that journalists could not publish articles that "either directly or indirectly promoting any given candidate, proposal, options, electoral preferences or political thesis, through articles, specials or any other form of message.”

8 Outside of threats to revisit libel laws in the United States, Trump has continually delegitimized the mainstream media by accusing them of peddling “fake news.” Trump’s obsession with complaining that the media is conspiring against him, is, Levitsky and Ziblatt assert, “familiar to any student of authoritarianism.”12 This belief is exemplified in a February

2017 tweet, in which “he called the media the “enemy of the American people,” a term that, critics noted, mimicked such a term used by Stalin and Hitler.13 A few days after his “enemy of the people” tweet, Trump delivered the following remarks at the Conservative Political Action

Committee Conference in Oxon Hill, Maryland:

I love the First Amendment; nobody loves it better than me. Nobody…But as you saw throughout the entire campaign, and even now, the fake news doesn't tell the truth…I say it doesn't represent the people. It will never represent the people, and we're going to do something about it.14

Despite his obsession with “fake news” and vilifying mainstream media outlets, Trump is benefitting and has benefitted from the surplus of media coverage that he has received. Levitsky and Ziblatt point out that during the primary, “Trump attracted free mainstream coverage by creating controversy. By one estimate, the Twitter accounts of MSNBC, CNN, CBS, and NBC – four outlets that no one could accuse of pro-Trump leanings – mentioned Trump twice as often as his general election rival, Hillary Clinton. According to another study, Trump enjoyed up to

$2 billion in free media coverage during the primary season.”15 The mainstream media also plays into his hands in the sense when the leader of the United States consistently attacks the media, mainstream outlets, in Stanford Law School professor Nathaniel Persily’s words, “may abandon

12 Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die, 181-82. 13 Emma Graham-Harrison, “‘Enemy of the people': Trump's phrase and its echoes of totalitarianism.” The Guardian, August 3, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/03/trump-enemy-of-the-people- meaning-history 14 Levitsky and Ziblatt, 181-82. And https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump- conservative-political-action-conference/ 15 Ibid., 58-59. As cited in Levitsky and Ziblatt: Nathaniel Persily, “The 2016 U.S. Election: Can Democracy Survive the Internet?” Journal of Democracy, April 2017, 67.

9 restraint and professional standards in a desperate effort to weaken the government.”16 This would ultimately play into Trump’s hands, as journalists could be perceived as abandoning journalistic and ethical standards.

And Trump’s repeated rhetorical attacks on the press appear to be working, as media trust among the general public has decreased since the 2016 election. A poll from Monmouth

University said three out of four Americans believe that the media routinely report fake news, and a Gallup/Knight Foundation study found that 42 percent of Republicans consider any news stories that cast a political group or politician in a negative light to be fake news.17

Legal scholar Jane Kirtley wrote: “The phrase has become so ubiquitous that Washington

Post columnist Margaret Sullivan has argued that it should be discarded because its original meaning – ‘fabricated stories intended to fool you’ – has been distorted beyond recognition.”18

And then there’s the issue of the aforementioned fabricated stories intended to mislead readers. The growth of social media websites and cable television has both allowed for an expanded platform for misinformation and a plethora of instantaneous ways to disseminate that misinformation. Levitsky and Ziblatt say, “[w]hereas the path to national name recognition once ran through relatively few mainstream channels, which favored establishment politicians over extremists, the new media environment made it easier for celebrities to achieve wide name recognition – and public support – practically overnight. This was particularly true on the

Republican side, where the emergence of Fox News and influential radio talk-show personalities,

16 Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die, 76. 17 Monmouth University Poll, “National: ‘Fake News’ Threat To Media; Editorial Decisions, Outside Actors At Fault.” April 2, 2018. https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/documents/monmouthpoll_us_040218.pdf/ and Erik Wemple, “Study: 42 percent of Republicans believe accurate — but negative — stories qualify as ‘fake news’”, The Washington Post, January 16, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/01/16/study- 42-percent-of-republicans-believe-accurate-but-negative-stories-qualify-as-fake-news/. 18 Kirtley, “Getting to the Truth: Fake News, Libel Laws, and ‘Enemies of the American People.’”

10 what political commentator David Frum calls the ‘conservative entertainment complex’ radicalized conservative voters, to the benefit of ideologically extreme candidates.”19

Levinsky and Ziblatt also outline the behaviors of other authoritarian rulers – notably, the phenomenon of bribing opponents or entities that an authoritarian leader feels threatened by:

Most elected autocrats begin by offering leading political, business, or media figures public positions, favors, perks, or outright bribes in exchange for their support or, at least, their quiet neutrality. Cooperative media outlets may gain privileged access to the president, while friendly business executives may receive profitable concessions or government contracts. The Fujimori government was masterful at buying off its critics, particularly those in the media. By the late 1990s, every major television network, several daily newspapers, and popular tabloid papers were on the government's payroll.20

While Benjamin Netanyahu is not mentioned in this section, the prime minister has been embroiled in a series of scandals, largely involving the bribery of media outlets for favorable coverage. The aforementioned scandals are detailed in the graphic below, created by Eran

Wolkowski:21

19 Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die, 56. And David Frum, “The Great Republican Revolt,” The Atlantic, September 9, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/the-great-republican-revolt/419118/. 20 Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die, 81-82. Alberto Fujimori was the President of Peru from 1990-2000. He ran a populist campaign that disparaged conservative rhetoric, but engaged in the very economic practices he criticized, as well as advancing deep state actions for which he is now imprisoned, such as corruption, kidnapping, and murder. 21 “Netanyahu Reelected: Everything You Need to Know About the Prime Minister's Corruption Scandals,” Haaretz, April 10, 2019, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-reelected-prime-minister-s-corruption- scandals-1.7106396.

11

Graphic by Eran Wolkowski. The graphic outlines the three main cases on which Netanyahu was indicted. Similarly, during Trump’s campaign, Sonja R. West reported: “it was even revealed that

Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, entered into an agreement with Sinclair for increased media coverage.”22 In December 2016, Kushner told business executives that Sinclair and its affiliates

22 Sonja R. West, “Presidential Attacks on the Press,” (Columbia: Missouri Law Review, 2018), 931-932.

12 were allowed more access to Trump and his campaign, as long as they broadcast interviews without commentary. Sinclair owns media outlets in some swing states like Ohio.23

Trump administration has also adhered to an aforementioned tenant of authoritarianism: keeping reporters from critical outlets out of news conferences. Less than two months into

Trump’s presidency, Levitsky and Ziblatt write:

Press Secretary Sean Spicer barred reporters from the New York Times, CNN, Politico, BuzzFeed, and the Los Angeles Times from attending an untelevised press ‘gaggle,’ while handpicking journalists from smaller but sympathetic outlets such as the Washington Times and One America News Network to round out the pool. The only modern precedent for such a move was Nixon's decision to bar the Washington Post from the White House after it broke the Watergate scandal.24

Trump’s negative attitude toward the press has normalized the belief that the idea mainstream media is not to be trusted, and that he is the only credible source of information.

Journalists and their safety

The president has unparalleled ability to shape the collective consciousness of the country on a variety of subjects through easy access to the press and arguably the highest position of authority. Thus, when the president launches verbal attacks on the mainstream media, he puts journalists in a vulnerable position: especially when those verbal attacks encourage physical violence. Along with verbal assaults on the press, Trump has retweeted content that encourages violence against journalists, such as a video in which his face is cropped onto a WWE wrestler’s body as he attacks a supposed journalist.25

23 Josh Dawsey and Hadas Gold, “Kushner: We struck deal with Sinclair for straighter coverage,” Politico, December 16, 2016, https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-campaign-sinclair-broadcasting-jared-kushner- 232764 24 Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die, 200. 25 Ibid., 181-82.

13 Mainstreaming violence against journalists has become a hallmark of the Trump era.

According to an article published by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, “[a] database of Trump’s negative tweets about the press, compiled by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker reporter Stephanie

Sugars, finds that 11% of all of his tweets since declaring his candidacy contain negative language about news organizations, specific journalists and the media as a whole.”26 The correlation between the encouragement of violence against journalists from the highest elected public official in the United States government and the carrying out of said violence cannot be ignored. In an article for the Columbia Journalism Review, Camille Fassett, a former reporter for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, writes:

Before 2018, the last time a journalist was killed in direct reprisal for their work in the United States was in 2007, with the murder of Oakland-based reporter Chauncey Bailey. In 2017, when the US Press Freedom Tracker—a reporting website and database attempting to systematically document press freedom violations in the United States— launched, we did not anticipate the need to track the number of murdered journalists, or to add a “killed” tag to the Tracker’s incident database.27

Doctored videos that idealized journalists being hurt or killed drift through social media channels alongside actual acts of violence against journalists, like the murder of five people working in the newsroom of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, in June 2018.

Trump denied initial requests from the mayor of Annapolis to lower American flags after the shooting at the Capital Gazette—a standard practice to honor victims of mass shootings.28 In addition, in August 2018, a man made threatening phone calls to the Boston Globe in which he

26 “Trump’s anti-press language on Twitter mirrored in violent video created by supporter,” U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, October 15, 2019, https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/trumps-anti-press-language-on-twitter- mirrored-in-violent-video-created-by-supporter/. 27 Camille Fassett, “The year in press freedom: Attacks, arrests, and more,” Columbia Journalism Review, December 19, 2018, https://www.cjr.org/analysis/us-press-freedom-tracker-2018.php. 28 Danielle Ohl, “Trump declines request to lower flags in memory of Capital Gazette shooting victims,” The Baltimore Sun, July 3, 2018, https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/anne-arundel/ac-can-white-house-flag-half- staff-20180703-story.html.

14 parroted Trump’s rhetoric regarding the press, deeming the mainstream media “the enemy of the people” and “fake news.” The Guardian, based in London, compiled a database of violent attacks that have been committed in Trump’s name since he took office. According to the database, the man “was found to have purchased a new rifle three months earlier. In one call, he told a Globe staffer: “I’m going to shoot you in the fucking head later today.” He vowed to continue the threats “as long as you keep attacking the president”. He pleaded guilty to making threatening communications.”29 The database tracked 52 instances of threats or acts of violence committed by Trump supporters between 2015 and 2019.

Similarly, Levitsky and Ziblatt recount an allegation from former FBI director James

Comey that revealed that “Trump suggested “putting reporters in jail” to send a message about publishing leaked classified information [and] the Department of Homeland Security also raised concerns among journalists when it announced a plan to create a database of journalists and bloggers and monitor their activity.30 Some fear that a leader’s inflammatory words could incite violence against entities like the mainstream press: “a look at demagogic leaders around the world suggests that many of them do eventually cross the line from words to action. This is because a demagogue's initial rise to power tends to polarize society, creating a climate of panic, hostility, and mutual distrust.”31

This climate is often embodied by attendees at Trump rallies. In his book The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America, CNN Chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta recounts being flipped off and called “traitors” and “scum” by the

29 Jon Swaine and Juweek Adolphe, “Violence in the name of Trump,” The Guardian, August 28, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2019/aug/28/in-the-name-of-trump-supporters-attacks- database. 30 Sonja R. West, “Presidential Attacks on the Press,” 922-923. 31 Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die, 76.

15 crowd at Trump rallies.32 Trump supporters at these events have been recorded yelling sentiments such as “CNN sucks!” and “F-- the media!” alongside chants that are xenophobic or

Islamophobic in nature. The QAnon conspiracy theory, which “basically holds that Trump is locked in battle with deep state forces in politics and the media,” has pervaded the mindset of many Trump supporters, heightening dislike for the media, and, “as The Washington Post’s

Margaret Sullivan writes, the coming out party of QAnon supporters means that Trump’s rallies have gone “from nasty to dangerous.”33

Photo by Jonathan Ernst. The photo shows supporters at a Trump rally in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2016.

The photo above, taken by Jonathan Ernst of Reuters, shows the back of a Trump supporter’s t-shirt, which reads “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required.” This photo was taken at a Trump rally in Minneapolis, Minnesota, shortly before the 2016 election.34

32 Jim Acosta, The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America (New York: HarperCollins, 2019), 2. 33 Pete Vernon, “A climate of hate toward the press at Trump rallies,” Columbia Journalism Review, August 2, 2018, https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/trump-acosta-rally.php 34 Brandy Zadrozny, “The Man Behind ‘Journalist, Rope, Tree,’” The Daily Beast, April 13, 2017, https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-man-behind-journalist-rope-tree.

16 Trump encourages such behavior. His Twitter has served as a powerful and legitimate tool that he uses to broadcast his ideology. For instance, Trump tweeted his recognition of

Israel’s sovereignty of the Golan Heights, thus erasing preceding American foreign policy in a few keystrokes, just 280 characters or less. In an article from the New York Times, the president delights in the gravity of his Tweets: “‘Boom. I press it,’” Mr. Trump recalled months later at a

White House conference attended by conservative social media personalities, ‘and, within two seconds, ‘We have breaking news.’”35 This is concerning when more than half of his Tweets are formatted as attacks towards someone or something – often Democrats, immigrants, and the mainstream media.36

Disdain for existing institutions and case law

Additionally, Trump uses other rhetorical signatures beyond blatant calls for distrust and panic. Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Doron Taussig highlight Trump’s tendencies to be

“spontaneous and unpredictable” and “systemically disdaining evidence against his wrongdoing as well as for existing institutions.37 Trump’s communication with the public via Twitter – accessible to him at any time – pose another form of alternative media that allows him to circumvent any traditional gatekeepers. Similarly, his rhetoric is often disdainful of existing political institutions, and other such institutions of power. He relies heavily on rhetoric that can

35 Michael D. Shear, Maggie Haberman, Nicholas Confessore, Karen Yourish, Larry Buchanan And Keith Collins, “How Trump Reshaped the Presidency in Over 11,000 Tweets,” The New York Times, November 2, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/02/us/politics/trump-twitter-presidency.html 36 Ibid. 37 Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Doron Taussig, “Disruption, Demonization, Deliverance, and Norm Destruction: The Rhetorical Signature of Donald J. Trump,” Political Science Quarterly (2017): 621 - 623, 635.

17 read as apocalyptic as he works to convince his audience that the country is falling apart and only he has the tools to remedy existing problems.38

Trump floated the idea that existing libel laws, such as the precedent established in New

York Times v. Sullivan (1964), should be “opened up.”39 However, he has since backed away from that, turning more to discrediting the press. No doubt legal advisers told Trump how difficult it would be to change the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, one of the most important free press cases in U.S. history. As per the law and society view of law, which will be discussed in this thesis, this route was much more efficient for him to take than to attempt to tackle existing libel law. As David McGraw, the deputy general counsel at the New York Times said, “The law can do only so much. It can give the press the freedom to matter, but it can’t make the press matter.”40

The rhetoric that Trump uses against the press – as well as against minorities, immigrants, and political leaders he opposes, just to name a few – calls the concept of incitement into question. The Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) addresses this issue.

Clarence Brandenburg, a Ku Klux Klan leader in rural southwest Ohio, was convicted under an

Ohio criminal syndicalism law for a speech he made at a rally in 1964. The law stated that it was illegal to advocate for “"crime, sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means

38 Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Doron Taussig, “Disruption, Demonization, Deliverance, and Norm Destruction,” 623. 39 Michael M. Grynbaum, “Trump Renews Pledge to ‘Take a Strong Look’ at Libel Laws,” The New York Times, January 10, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/10/business/media/trump-libel-laws.html. New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) is a landmark Supreme Court case that established the standard for “actual malice”, or reckless disregard for the truth, in libel cases. 40 Preet Bharara, “The Truth Is Hard. But for a New York Times Lawyer, Defending It Is Fun,” The New York Times, March 11, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/books/review/david-e-mccraw-truth-in-our- times.html.

18 of accomplishing industrial or political reform,” as well as gathering “with any society, group, or assemblage of persons formed to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal syndicalism.”41

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that this law violated Brandenburg’s right to free expression and that the Ohio law was overly broad. The court consequently established a two- pronged test to evaluate speech acts: (1) speech can be prohibited if it is “directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and (2) it is “likely to incite or produce such action.”42 This replaced the “clear and present danger” test, per Schenck v. U.S. (1919) previously in place for instances in which the government can restrict dangerous speech.43 Below is a photo of Clarence

Brandenburg (left) and Richard Hanna, a member of the American Nazi Party, following their arrests for advocating violence against minority groups in Cincinnati, Ohio, August 8, 1964.44

Image courtesy of the Associated Press, anonymous photographer. The image shows Clarence Brandenburg (left).

41 Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444. 42 Ibid. 43 249 U.S. 47. For more information, see the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School, “Clear and Present Danger,” https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/clear-and-present-danger. 44 AP Images, “Ku Klux Klan 1964,” http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press- Domestic-News-Ohio-Unit-/3413c39fa3574d04973609d69306c330.

19

The reoccurring theme of allowing views only sanctioned by those in power positions has continually emerged throughout history. From the shuttering of anti-slavery discourse to the systemic persecution of those affiliated with communism during the first and second Red Scares in the 1920s and 1950s, there are countless instances in which those in positions of political and/or monetary power have manipulated the free expression of nonconformists to better their own ends. Thus, the need to safeguard opinions not held by the majority is imperative, even when those opinions are abhorrent.

A famous letter written in 1934 by members of the American Civil Liberties Union

“Shall We Defend Free Speech for Nazis in America?” outlines the dangers of subjectivity when it comes to free speech. The ACLU concluded that even the most hateful speech must be protected, so long as it does not imminently lead to danger.45 Deciding what speech is worthy of protection risks being corrupted by ulterior or subjective motives and can inadvertently lead the perpetrators of hate speech to portray themselves as victims. This is a tactic Trump has used, and he casts the mainstream media as a suppressor of his rhetoric, and himself as an undeserving target of criticism when journalists write factual stories that anger him. Trump and those in his administration often pander to placing blame on “both sides” in many situations, including issues regarding freedom of the press and free expression. When asked a question about aggression towards journalists at Trump rallies during a White House press briefing, former Press Secretary

Sarah Huckabee Sanders rebuked the question by criticizing the press for reporting on matters related to national security before saying: “While we certainly support freedom of the press, we

45 “Shall We Defend Free Speech for Nazis in America?” The Los Angeles Times, August 17, 2017, https://documents.latimes.com/aclu-asks-1934-shall-we-defend-free-speech-nazis-america/.

20 also support freedom of speech, and we think that those things go hand in hand.”46 This suggests that speech encouraging aggression towards journalists is protected expression.

This also raises the question of whether Trump is encouraging his supporters to engage in

Brandenburg’s “imminent lawless action” through his threatening rhetoric toward journalists and anyone else he perceives to be a threat. It’s not out of reason to say that his taunts pose harm to his opposition. As previously mentioned in this literature review, acts of violence against journalists have been committed exponentially more often in the United States since Trump began his campaign.47

Israel

Netanyahu’s relationship with the media and with right-wing populism has not been as closely examined in recent academia in comparison to Trump. Because Netanyahu has been a major player in Israeli politics for the better part of three decades, the existing literature regarding Israeli populism and the Israeli political landscape gives insight to Netanyahu’s relationship with the media.

The Political Right in Israel by Dani Filc aims to analyze this occurrence by examining historical and contemporary populism in Israel, as well as an analysis of the definitions of populism, and of occurrences of populism in Latin America, North America, and Europe. Filc opens his book with an anecdote about Vicki Knafo, an unemployed single mother from southern

Israel. In 2003, Knafo famously marched from Mitzpe Ramon, her hometown, to the Knesset building in Jerusalem where she and other low-income Mizrahi women protested the Israeli

46 “Press Briefing by Sarah Huckabee Sanders.” The White House, August 1, 2018, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/press-briefing-press-secretary-sarah-sanders-080118/. 47 Camille Fassett, “The year in press freedom: Attacks, arrests, and more.”

21 government for several weeks. These protests came from protracted frustration that arose from extended racism and discrimination. The government was controlled by the Likud party and

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at this time. Shai and Dror, two comedians on Israeli television, filmed a skit about the protests. They asked a woman protesting who she would vote for in the next election, and she responded “For Likud and Bibi [Netanyahu], of course, long live

Israel!”48 While satirical, Shai and Dror are highlighting a curious phenomenon in Israeli society:

The Mizrahi population of Israel, which accounts for Jews of Middle Eastern descent, often votes for the Likud Party. This occurs despite the fact that the Likud party shifted Israeli society from socialism to neoliberalism, thus employing policies that often negatively impact Mizrahim (the plural of Mizrahi) and other non-Ashkenazi (or Eastern European) populations in Israel. Filc asserts that Israeli populism is particularly unique because of the nature of Jewish migration to

Israel, the occupation of Palestinian territory, and the racism toward and exclusion of the indigenous population. Additionally, there is persistent conflict around the inclusion and exclusion of different groups, such as Mizrahim and Palestinian citizens of Israel. Filc alludes to the identity politics that pervade the region, saying that “in a divided society, the signifier people has become a major reference point for the constitution of political identity, and populism, a central feature of the political system.”49 Filc is explaining the stratified layers of oppression in

Israel. While racism against people of color is pervasive in Israel, black and brown Jews are fundamentally more included in Israeli society than Arab-Israelis or Palestinians. Thus, right- wing populism in the form of Herut and Likud appealed to Mizrahim because they proposed an avenue of inclusion for a marginalized sector of the population, while further excluding

Palestinians from the fold of Israeli society.

48 Dani Filc, The Political Right in Israel: Different faces of Jewish populism, Routledge (2010): 1. 49 Ibid., 2.

22 Filc explains populism as a political phenomenon and contrasts it to more structured political ideologies such as liberalism and authoritarianism. He outlines some recurrent themes of populism, “among them, the belief in the people as the source of virtue, nostalgia for a mythical past, a certain degree of xenophobia, anti-elitism, anti-intellectualism, and lack of confidence in liberal (procedural) democracy.”50 The concept of nativism is also salient to populism. Cas Mudde, a Dutch political scientist, defines nativism as “an ideology which holds that states should be inhabited exclusively by members of the native group (‘the nation’) and that nonnative elements (persons and ideas) are fundamentally threatening to the homogenous nation- state.”51 Similarly, while populism is explicitly opposed to liberalism – as “populism believes that liberalism imposes undesired constraints on the power of the people” – it is not inherently bound to authoritarianism, fascism, or other such ideologies, and can co-exist alongside them.”52

To frame his argument, Filc identifies two subfamilies of populism: inclusive populism, which aims to include marginalized social groups in the fabric of government and society, and exclusionary populism, which essentially states that “we are the people, they are not,” thus adhering more to the definition of nativism.53

When the state of Israel was created in 1948, the Mapai (Labor) Party was the dominant governing party and ideology. Filc asserts that, at this point in time, Israel’s society was not based not on class but characterized “by a combination of ethno-national and ideological characteristics…motivated by an ideology that blended nationalist and collectivist features (with certain socialist elements).”54 This was conceptualized in the idea of a “sabra” – a strong

50 Dani Filc, The Political Right in Israel: Different faces of Jewish populism, 8. 51 Cas Mudde, as cited in Filc, The Political Right in Israel: Different faces of Jewish populism, 8. 52 Filc, The Political Right in Israel: Different faces of Jewish populism, 9. 53 Ibid., 3. 54 Ibid., 19.

23 Ashkenazi man who lives on a kibbutz (a communal farm) and works the land. Essentially, a sabra is the Israeli equivalent of one who “pulls themselves up by their bootstraps” in the United

States. This lofty ideal fundamentally excluded the Mizrahi population of Israel, because unlike the Eastern European Jews who came to Israel in the years shortly before and after the state was founded, the Mizrahi population of Israel settled in refugee camps rather than kibbutzim and moshavim (another type of cooperative community). Additionally, because of their differing values and customs, Ashkenazim often saw Mizrahim as primitive or otherwise less capable or intelligent.55 While Mizrahim were still part of the common “we” in Israeli society under the

Labor government, they occupied a subaltern position in Israel’s social, political and economic landscapes – despite accounting for over half of Israel’s population. Israeli society under the

Labor Party therefore excluded both Jews of color and Arab residents of Israel. This structure was obtained through socialist means, such as nationalizing land and the creation of the

Histradut – a powerful union that provided a plethora of social services.

Menachem Begin, a prime minister of Israel in office from 1977-1983, created a means for symbolic and political inclusion for Mizrahim when he founded the Herut party (known today as Likud). While both Labor and Herut were self-described nationalist parties, Herut adopted a platform that was at once right-wing, anti-elitist, and anti-intellectual. He promised a homogenous Israeli society in which Jews of all races and ethnicities would be deemed equal.

Begin presented himself as the representative of the underdog (despite being Ashkenazi himself) and the enemy of the “elite” – financial capital, mainstream political power, intellectuals and the media – that supposedly despised the people.56

55 Filc, The Political Right in Israel: Different faces of Jewish populism, 30. 56 Ibid., 23.

24 Begin also employed rhetorical tactics meant to undermine the Labor leadership, whom he depicted as anti-Israel by pointing out that they ideologically aligned with Israel’s socialist and leftist Arab neighbors. To discredit Shimon Peres, a prominent Labor Party politician, Likud leadership circulated two rumors: that he was a major shareholder of an electronics business, and that his mother was Arab. This effectively portrayed Peres as an enemy of the people – simultaneously upper-class and Arab. Similarly, Nurit Gertz, a journalist for Ha’artez, described

Likud’s rhetoric as “…encouraging a mass of voters who, instead of thinking and acting, would rather rely on a leader-father who thinks and acts for them.”57 Begin gave speeches that claimed that hegemonic socialist movements, like unions and kibbutzim, were fundamentally built for exclusion and maintaining a social gap between Jews and Israel.58

The inclusion of Mizrahim took place in three dimensions: symbolic, political, and material. Symbolically, Likud leadership used the signifiers “Jewish people” and “brothers” in speeches and publications to further include Mizrahim into the folds of Israeli society, simultaneously further excluding Palestinian citizens of Israel. 59 Politically, Filc asserts that

“Herut/Likud was the breeding ground for Mizrahi political leaders who had come to Israel as children or who were born in the country.”60 Supporters of Likud have often espoused populist sentiments, such as instances of people referring to Likud as their “home,” thus illustrating the three-fold inclusion of Mizrahim the pinnacle of acceptance.61

The rise of Likud party marked the transition from socialism to neoliberalism in Israel, even though this model negatively impacted Likud’s base: Mizrahim and the working poor.

57 Filc, The Political Right in Israel: Different faces of Jewish populism, 26. 58 Ibid., 26. 59 Ibid., 37-38. 60 Ibid., 39. 61 Ibid., 41.

25 Additionally, in the 1996, 1999 and 2009 elections, Netanyahu’s supporters largely came from

“the geographical and social peripheries.”62 Filc asserts that this is because marginalized groups seek inclusion into the majority, even at their economic detriment.

Netanyahu solidifies many of the techniques used by and goals of his main predecessor,

Begin. Throughout his political career, Netanyahu has employed common themes of populist tradition – mainly, eroding public trust in governing bodies and the media, as well as pandering toward xenophobia and anti-Palestinian sentiment. All of this is done in the name of justifying privatization and expanding neoliberalism to each corner of the Israeli state. In order to achieve this goal, the Likud party weakened unions, eroded workers’ rights, and privatized pensions.

Additionally, Netanyahu claims that foreign workers are stealing jobs in order to explain away economic decay and decries Palestinians – both Israeli citizens and not – are a threat to national security.63

Additionally, Netanyahu furthered the populist rhetorical style of Begin by amplifying it, thanks to the advancement of technology and subsequently the advancement of television, social media, and other forms of communication. This allowed Netanyahu to circumvent traditional mediums and build a direct relationship with the public. Filc claims that because of

Netanyahu’s style, the TV screen…has substituted for the public square as the meeting place for leaders and their supporters…In the 1996 elections Netanyahu defeated Labor leader Shimon Peres, who was the perfect embodiment of the party machine. The Likud leader used a direct, every day, almost inadequate language that strongly contrasted with his rival’s ornate discourse.64

62 Filc, The Political Right in Israel: Different faces of Jewish populism, 56. 63 Ibid., 72. 64 Ibid., 71.

26 This also allowed Netanyahu to amplify his message of “us” versus “them,” which allowed Likud’s goals – to spread neoliberalism, to expand the settlements, and further marginalize the Palestinian population of Israel – to be conveyed directly to constituents.65

Netanyahu’s relationship to the press has been an interesting one. According to Tehilla

Shwartz Altshuler, the head of the Media Reform Program at the Israel Democracy Institute:

Netanyahu, who had spent much of his childhood in Philadelphia and his post-military years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, served for four years as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, in New York. He returned to Israel in 1988, fluent not only in English but also in American media culture. Observers recall him shuttling between Likud primary events carrying a rack of identical blue shirts—changing every few hours to avoid the appearance of perspiration on camera. He knew how to apply his own makeup. This, in a country where politicians were known for their sabra unkemptness.66

Netanyahu thus introduced an approach to media relations that was unheard of Israel at that point. However, Netanyahu was not able to stay in control of his image for long. He was vehemently opposed to the 1993 Oslo Accords meant to broker peace between Israel and

Palestine. Negotiations were between the leaders of both states at the time: Yitzhak Rabin of

Israel and Yasir Arafat of Palestine. Rabin was murdered by a right-wing Jewish extremist, and

“[a]bout a month before the murder, Netanyahu stood smiling from a balcony during a rally as throngs of protesters chanted ‘Death to Rabin.’ Journalists never let Netanyahu forget it, writing about an atmosphere of incitement and intimidation they tied directly to the assassination. ‘He was seen almost as a usurper,’” wrote Natan Sachs, the director of the Brookings Institution’s

Center for Middle East Policy.67

65 Filc, The Political Right in Israel: Different faces of Jewish populism, 72. 66 Ruth Margalit, “A Ruinous Obsession,” Columbia Journalism Review, 2019, https://www.cjr.org/special_report/netanyahu-israeli-press.php. 67 Ibid.

27 There is a clear link between Trump and Netanyahu’s attitudes towards the press. In her article “A Ruinous Obsession,” Ruth Maraglit wrote:

By all accounts, the job of covering Netanyahu has become more difficult with time. His antagonistic relationship with the media has rendered him suspicious, defensive, closed off. He rebukes journalists by name, which many see as a direct imitation of Donald Trump, with whom Netanyahu shares an especially cozy alliance and a number of career parallels. Denigrations of “fake news” pepper his speeches. Reporters also recognize a growing disregard for the truth. “He used to have statesmanlike boundaries,” says Tal Shalev, who has been covering Netanyahu since 2011 for a string of publications. “But in the past two or three years, statements coming out of the prime minister’s bureau have turned out to be either not true or distorted; it’s very Trumpian.” Add to that Netanyahu’s mounting legal woes, she says, and “You are reminded that this is a man who is out to save his own skin.68

Journalists also often are forced to endure verbal attacks from Netanyahu, as well as threats from his supports. In an interview with Gideon Levy in May 2019, he told me he has had needed bodyguards at different times because he is threatened by civilians for his anti-occupation opinion pieces in Haaretz.69 He has been a journalist for 35 years.

“Just last week, I went to where the rockets are falling in the south, in Ashkelon,” he said.

“They were very aggressive toward me. But the aggression comes from the grassroots, not from up.” Levy stressed that neither the government nor Haaretz has ever threatened him or tried to censor him. He describes Haaretz as “a free and liberal platform.”70

Netanyahu’s attitude toward the press has had tangible impacts: Levy informed me that

Haaretz has lost many subscriptions because of the outlet’s “leftist attitude.”

“There’s one article I published a few years ago that Haaretz claims cost them three million shekels in terms of cancelations and lost advertisements,” he said. “But again, this is more from the public and less directly by the government.” The article was about Israeli pilots

68 Margalit, “A Ruinous Obsession.” 69 Gideon Levy, interview by Lilli Sher, May 12, 2019, audio, Tel Aviv, Israel. 70 Ibid.

28 bombing Gaza in 2014. “Everyone supported me here, and no one regretted publishing it, but it had a price.”

Margalit further outlines this phenomenon:

By playing the victim, Netanyahu was soon able to gain back his base. For several weeks, drivers passing by the busy Glilot intersection north of Tel Aviv saw not the usual campaign posters depicting candidates’ photoshopped portraits, but a billboard showing four stern faces: Ben Caspit, Amnon Abramovitch, Guy Peleg, and Raviv Drucker—all of them journalists who had been reporting critically on the prime minister. A line of text ran above their faces: “They will not decide. You decide.”71

Meanwhile, Netanyahu has not given an interview to the Israeli press since 2009, save for election cycles.72

And the delegitimizing tactics used by Netanyahu have worked: A recent survey from

Haifa University shows that 77 percent of Likud voters believe that the media is unfair, 90 percent of religious and ultra-Orthodox Israelis say that the media in Israel has been attempting to overthrow Netanyahu. On the flip side, 87 percent of the leftist Labor party thinks that the media is fair.73

In conjunction with delegitimizing rhetoric toward the media, such as framing their reporting as a “witch hunt” against him, Netanyahu also subverts the mainstream media by taking to Facebook and other social media platforms to skillfully amplify his messages. This has proven to be successful; his Facebook page has more “likes” than any other Israeli politician or media outlet, thus broadcasting his social media messages to a large audience.74

71 Margalit, “A Ruinous Obsession.” 72 King Bibi. 73 Maraglit, “A Ruinous Obsession.” 74 King Bibi.

29 Populism

Filc stresses that it’s essential to differentiate between populism and political movements with populist elements. The definition of “populism” varies depending on where one is in the world and ranges widely on the political spectrum. Populism in the U.S. is characterized by anti- immigration and a hatred of elites that began from tensions between Federalists and Democratic

Republicans in the 19th century. Distrust of Jews and Catholics, as well as institutions like banks, has been common in U.S. populism. Meanwhile, populism in Latin America is described by Filc as “a political movement which challenges established elites in the name of a union between a leader and ‘the people’ (undifferentiated by group or class).” Movements stemmed from “the mobilization of excluded social groups (internal migrants, new urban workers, peasants, and indigenous groups).”75 Latin American populism can be anti-imperialist whereas European populism is “the colonizer’s nativism.”76 Populism in Europe, according to Filc, is shaped by

“the underlying idea…that a democratic nation-state belongs to one ethnic group and that other ethnic groups can only live there if they accept this group’s dominance, is a prime example of

‘national preference’, the guiding principle of all populist radical right parties and the basis of ethnocratic rule.”77 In light of other populisms, Israeli populism is fundamentally different because of the polarizing ties of identity to politics, as well as the ethnonational ties to citizenship and nationality.78

When comparing the rhetorical styles of Trump and Netanyahu, it is useful to also examine the differences between the two governmental systems. Apple of Gold:

Constitutionalism in Israel and the United States by Gary Jeffrey Jacobsohn delves into the

75 Filc, The Political Right in Israel: Different faces of Jewish populism, 129. 76 Ibid., 138-139. 77 Ibid, 137. 78 Ibid, 141.

30 similarities and differences of Israel and the United States government. The comparisons

Jacobsohn makes throughout his book rest on the argument that the United States is an individualistic society, while the core tenants of Israeli society are communal. This fundamental difference shapes studying and comparing the laws and policies of the respective governments, as it shapes the functioning of the democracies and limits and qualifies outright comparisons.

However, Jacobsohn notes that much of the Israeli interpretation of the law, especially from

Supreme Court judges that employ a rights-based ethical stance, is gleaned from United States constitutional law. Because Israel lacks a formal written Constitution parallel to the United

States, much of the Israeli legal doctrine regarding free expression has been inspired by the

American First Amendment.79

Many integral Israeli court cases regarding free expression have outright borrowed language from First Amendment law cases in the United States, as demonstrated in the landmark case Kol Ha’am v. Minister of Interior, decided in 1953. According to the Global Freedom of

Expression database,

The Supreme Court of Israel found that the Government’s suspension of Kol Ha’am newspaper and its Arabic-language sister Al-Ittihad was an unconstitutional restriction on press freedom and free expression. The Government suspended the newspapers under Section 19(2)(a) of the Press Ordinance after they published articles sharply critical of Israeli foreign policy, arguing that the articles posed a danger to the public peace. The judges set aside the Government’s order and established that for a suspension to be constitutional, relevant circumstances must be considered, including intent of the publisher and the likelihood that publication would endanger public peace.80

79 Gary Jeffrey Jacobsohn, Apple of Gold: Constitutionalism in Israel and the United States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 142, 148. 80 Global Freedom of Expression, “Kol Ha’am v. Minister of Interior,” Columbia University. https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/israel-kolhaam/.

31 Shimon Agranat openly cited principles championed by American Justices Oliver

Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis when ruling in favor of two newspapers that openly criticized the Israeli government.81

Jacobsohn also highlights the contentious nature of Zionism in Israel, particularly between religious and secular Israelis.82 Zionism, an ideology founded by Theodor Herzl, was sparked by the idea that Jews are fundamentally unsafe, and thus needed to mobilize in the name of self-determination and self-governance. Today, Zionism typically means support for the existence of a Jewish state.

Because the dueling definitions are, in fact, incompatible, it was decided by the Knesset that a formal Constitution could not actually be written without alienating one group. Similarly, drawing from the law and society movement, it is essential to consider the actual functioning of the law in a tense, anxiety-riddled society like Israel. While the law can say one thing, it truly rests upon citizens to implement and uphold the law. Even while there is not strict censorship in

Israel per the law, Levy says that many Israelis engage in “self-censorship” – even if an Israeli journalist wants to report on something, they may lessen the projected impact of their reporting because they have been raised in a society in which security is valued above all else.83

Law and the Culture of Israel by Menachem Mautner offers a detailed overview of the law and society landscape in Israel, as well as offering interesting parallels between the functioning of Israeli and American law. The author seamlessly contextualized the legal landscape of Israel in light of its history, culture, and other factors. Mautner describes the dichotomy between a “Jewish state” and a “democratic state,” and the Court’s role in mitigating

81Jacobsohn, Apple of Gold: Constitutionalism in Israel and the United States, 139. 82 Ibid., 99 83 Interview with Gideon Levy, May 12, 2019.

32 the gap between a government that attempts to be both.84 Israel as a Jewish state cannot also be a democratic state for its non-Jewish residents, which is becoming more evident than ever in

Netanyahu’s exclusionary rhetoric. He has said on multiple occasions that he does not believe a

Palestinian state should exist.85

Additionally, Mautner describes the growing tensions between two factions in Israel that were once minorities: the religious Jewish right and the Arab population of Israel. These groups will soon overtake the secular Jewish majority of the country, which will undoubtedly lead to enormous legal and social changes.86

Israel has also shifted from collectivism and socialist values at the time of its founding to neoliberalism and capitalism, described alongside an increase in securitization. This might be a logical link or parallel to the United States, because both countries benefit financially and militarily from one another. There has also been a shift, Mautner says, towards religious fundamentalism in Israel, which has partially been borne from the anxiety over what a Jewish state truly means or entails. Halacha, or Jewish law, has been implemented in the Israeli equivalent of the Constitution (the series of Basic Laws).87 The Basic Laws were also written after the First Intifada, a series of Palestinian uprisings, so it makes sense that Israel was trying to assert the validity of a Jewish state by codifying Jewish values in Israeli law.88

84 Menachem Mautner, Law and the Culture of Israel (Oxford: OUP Oxford, 2011), 51. 85 Jodi Rudoren, “Netanyahu Says No to Statehood for Palestinians,” The New York Times, March 16, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/world/middleeast/benjamin-netanyahu-campaign-settlement.html. 86 Menachem Mautner, Law and the Culture of Israel, 199-200. 87 Ibid., 3 88 Ibid., 46

33 Theory

The law and society ideology is instrumental to my thesis. This ideology sees law as a social construct and asserts that society must implement formal laws in order for them to actually hold any weight. This is because legal decision-making mechanisms, such as courts, “lack enforcement powers [and] their impact is dependent on the will of others.”89 Thus, any laws made regarding the press, the First Amendment, or any related factors will only be upheld when internalized by society at large. Under leaders who disregard existing law, such as Trump and

Netanyahu, it is important for citizens to be aware that law can only go so far.

In addition to the aforementioned law and society framing that will be implemented throughout the thesis, the book Declaration by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri presents a relevant analysis of democracy and a critique of neoliberal society that can be applied to governments across the world.

Hardt and Negri address the victims of neoliberal society: the indebted, the mediatized, the securitized, and the represented. The indebted refer to the social condition of debt in neoliberal society and how it is impossible to exist without incurring debt of some sort. This section outlines the control and moral power that debt forces upon people, creating a never- ending cycle of anxiety, forced productivity, and, of course, more debt.90 Additionally, Hardt and

Negri posit the concept that “exploitation today is based primarily…on the fact that the 99 percent of the population is subject – owes work, owes money, owes obedience – to the 1 percent.”91 The mediatized refers to the information overload that has come hand-in-hand with the rise of social media and technological advances. The authors argue that this glut of

89 Kitty Calavita, An Invitation to Law and Society, Second Edition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016), 137. 90 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Declaration (New York: Argo-Navis, 2012), 13. 91 Ibid., 12.

34 information renders the majority of people desensitized and ill-equipped to fully participate in sociopolitical life.92 The securitized refers to the security state that grips society, recording everyone’s data, internet searches, credit card usage, and the like.93 The represented outlines how democracy and the true political participation and influence of constituents is essentially an empty myth. The concept of representation itself is said to be a barrier between people from power.94 This fraught condition is what drives populism and the desperation to elect leaders that seem to promise real and lasting change.

The authors present the paradox that a surplus of communication stifles creativity and open, free expression in the context of social media. Additionally, the concept of constant scrutinization filters into “the securitized” as well as “the mediatized.” People are, Hardt and

Negri claim, societally paralyzed by fear. Populist leaders such as Trump and Netanyahu capitalize on this fear, especially in an age of national security threats. Because the law in both

Israel and the United States that speech can be censored for reasons of national security, it is important to know the difference between fearmongering and actual security concerns.

Declaration also provides an important lens through which to critique the social and governmental functioning in neoliberal societies such as the United States and Israel.

92 Hardt and Negri, Declaration 16. 93 Ibid., 25. 94 Ibid., 27.

35 Chapter two: Research Methods

This is a qualitative thematic and rhetorical analysis of the tactics used by Trump and

Netanyahu to delegitimize the mainstream media. Sonja K. Foss describes rhetorical analysis as

“a qualitative research method that is designed for the systematic investigation of explanation of symbolic acts and artifacts for the purpose of understanding rhetorical processes.”95 To conduct my rhetorical analysis, I employed the framework of ideological criticism, which analyzes the rhetoric of a given ideological group. Foss explains that rhetorical criticism is most appropriate to use when “rhetorical critics are interested in rhetoric primarily for what it suggests about beliefs and values” and focus specifically on a given ideology.96 Ideologies in this context are defined by Foss as “a set or pattern of beliefs that evaluates relevant issues and topics for a group, providing an interpretation of some domain of the world and encouraging particular attitudes and actions to it.”97

Ideological criticism can be applied to ideologies as varied as Marxism, patriotism, and multiculturalism, and has been influenced by perspectives such as cultural studies and deconstructionism.98 In this case, my study analyzes the rhetoric of two right-wing populist leaders, Trump and Netanyahu. I achieve this by deconstructing texts in order to discern their meaning and purpose. It is an effective method of research for my thesis, because the manner in which Trump and Netanyahu simultaneously disregard and vilify the mainstream media illuminates the respective leaders’ political goals, as illustrated symbolically through their respective rhetorical processes.

95 Sonja Foss, Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration & Practice, 3rd edition (Long Grove, Il, Waveland Press, 2004), 6. 96 Ibid., 239. 97 Ibid., 281. 98 Ibid., 281.

36 In his book The Political Right in Israel: Different faces of Jewish populism, Dani Filc explains populism as a political phenomenon and contrasts it to more structured political ideologies such as liberalism and authoritarianism. Filc outlines some recurrent themes of populism, “among them, the belief in the people as the source of virtue, nostalgia for a mythical past, a certain degree of xenophobia, anti-elitism, anti-intellectualism, and lack of confidence in liberal (procedural) democracy.”99 The concept of nativism is also salient to populism. Cas

Mudde, a Dutch political scientist, defines nativism as “an ideology which holds that states should be inhabited exclusively by members of the native group (‘the nation’) and that nonnative elements (persons and ideas) are fundamentally threatening to the homogenous nation-state.” 100

Similarly, while populism is explicitly opposed to liberalism – as “populism believes that liberalism imposes undesired constraints on the power of the people” – it is not inherently bound to authoritarianism, fascism, or other such ideologies, and can co-exist alongside them.101 I use

Filc and Mudde’s definitions of populism and nativism as a guide and a framework in my rhetorical and ideological criticism analyses.

An example of ideological criticism is found in the essay “Civilized Colonialism:

Pocahontas as Neocolonial Rhetoric” where authors Derek T. Buescher and Kent A. Ona assert that the Disney movie Pocahontas rewrites history by replacing the history of colonialism with a softer, romantic ideology embodied in the encounter between Pocahontas and John Smith. They criticize the ideologies of both the colonialism illustrated in the acts of Christopher Columbus,

John Smith, and their ilk, as well as the neocolonial rhetoric found in Pocahontas, which softens the harsh realities of colonialism and makes it both palatable and normalized for contemporary

99 Filc, The Political Right in Israel, 8. 100 Ibid., 8, citing Mudde. 101 Ibid., 9.

37 audiences.102 Another example of ideological criticism can be found in “A Tale of Two

Ideologies: Winona LaDuke’s Vice Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech” by Anthony N.

Docan. In this essay, the author analyzes how Winona LaDuke, who ran as Ralph Nader’s vice- presidential running mate in 2000, introduces nontraditional and marginalized perspectives by employing rhetoric that may already be familiar to her audience. Docan states:

…ideologies are usually not deliberately and consciously recognized. Rather, they gain momentum, salience, and strength from support in numbers, access to resources, and alliances with powerful groups that increase their legitimacy. When ideologies become hegemonic, they allow us to understand the world in particular, yet limited ways, while other viewpoints are less visible. As ideologies become a part of the mainstream, they seem natural, normal, and familiar. When this familiarity is resisted, it is often a limited resistance in which the challenge often does not contradict and even may support the dominant ideology. In an ideological analysis, the critic identifies the nature of the ideology, interests included, and strategies used to support the ideology. To identify the nature of the ideology, the critic frequently examines the artifact for what it asks the audience to believe, understand, feel, or think by exploring assumptions, premises, and particular characteristics of the artifact…[and] an identification of rhetorical strategies allows for an understanding of how rhetoric is used to create or support the ideology identified.103

With this framework, Docan analyzes the duality of the hegemonic political rhetoric

LaDuke presents in her speech, and how LaDuke simultaneously introduced Native American and leftist political ideologies in her speech.

To conduct my rhetorical analysis, I examined the themes in coverage of mainstream news outlets in each country: namely, the New York Times from the United States, and Haaretz from Israel. Trump’s relationship with the media has been covered more extensively in American media in comparison to coverage Netanyahu’s relationship with the Israeli media during the time frame I am analyzing, so the output of results from the two papers is not equal. This is because many Americans did not expect Trump to become president in 2016, and his leadership style and

102 Derek T. Buescher & Kent A. Ono, “Civilized Colonialism: Pocahontas as Neocolonial Rhetoric,” Women's Studies in Communication, Volume 19, Issue 2, 1996. 103 Foss, 281.

38 manner of decision-making is unprecedented, thus leading to more coverage. In the Columbia

Journalism Review article “When all the news that fits is Trump,” the former executive editor of the New York Times, Jill Abramson, highlights the correlation between Trump’s attacks on the press and increase in the New York Times subscribers, and notes that the Times has hired more reporters solely to report on White House affairs.104 Netanyahu, on the other hand, has been a major player in Israeli government for more than two decades, so his rhetorical tactics and leadership style are not a new phenomenon for Israelis. Additionally, though there are others, the

New York Times is often the outlet deemed to be “fake news” by Trump. Haaretz is disdained by

Netanyahu and the conservative Israeli public alike.105 I will focus on coverage from September

1, 2016 to October 1, 2019. I chose this time period because it coincides with the months leading up to the 2016 U.S. election. I will also acknowledge the history of term “fake news” and false information – particularly Netanyahu’s use of “fake news” rhetoric dating back to 1999. I also examined the changing nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship under these leaders.

I traveled to Israel in May of 2019 to conduct deep background research on my topic.

While in Israel, I interviewed Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Atschuler, a legal researcher for the Israel

Democracy Institute, an independent research and action center; two law professors, Dr. Roy

Peled of the Haim Striks School of Management in Rishon Lezion and Dr. Adam Shinar of the

Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya; Dr. Karine Nachon, a communications professor at the

Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya; Boaz Rakocz, the founder of a fact-checking nonprofit called

The Whistle in Tel Aviv; and Gideon Levy, a journalist for Haaretz. These interviews helped me create a deeper understanding of the social and political landscape of free expression in Israel.

104 Jill Abramson, “When all the news that fits is Trump,” Columbia Journalism Review, 2017, https://www.cjr.org/special_report/when-all-the-news-that-fits-is-trump.php. 105 Interview with Gideon Levy, May 12, 2019.

39 Using the databases NewsBank and Nexis Uni, I searched the archives of the New York

Times and Haaretz and analyzed and compared the coverage of rhetorical tactics used by Trump and Netanyahu to delegitimize the mainstream media. The keyword searches I used for each outlet were: “Trump” and “fake news”; “Netanyahu” and “fake news”; “Trump” and “liberal media” and “Netanyahu” and “liberal media”; “Trump” and “lying press”, and “Netanyahu and

“lying press”. These terms are derived from the language and terminology used by Trump and

Netanyahu when they aim to delegitimize the mainstream media. I read each article published between September 1, 2016 and October 1, 2019 and analyzed the rhetorical tactics I ascertained from the articles. The keyword search “Trump” and “fake news” from the New York Times yields

2,724 results, while “Trump and “liberal media” returns 109 articles, “Netanyahu” and “fake news”, 50, and “Netanyahu” and “liberal media” yielded 5 results. Meanwhile, the keyword search “Netanyahu” and “fake news” yielded 153 results from Haaretz, “Netanyahu” and

“liberal media” yielded 11 results, “Netanyahu” and “lying press” yields 2 results.

I conducted my research through the lenses of law and society studies, as detailed in chapter one, and through the lens of critical and cultural studies of communication. Additional lenses that will impact my research are the fact that I am Jewish, and I have visited Israel three times. I also politically identify as progressive, which leads me to view Trump, Netanyahu, and the issues their respective administrations pose through that particular political lens.

While the concept of rampant media delegitimization is not a new one, especially in

Israel, Israeli media appeared to report more on “fake news” alongside Donald Trump’s increased rhetorical attacks on the media using such terminology than on the country’s own prime minister. Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel since 2009, is similarly notable for delegitimizing mainstream or otherwise critical media outlets.

40 The publication analyzed, Haaretz, is a left-leaning mainstream newspaper headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, that circulates a daily Hebrew language newspaper and publishes online daily in both English and Hebrew. “Ha’aretz” means “the land” in English. Established in 1918, it is the longest running newspaper in Israel. Haaretz is considered to be the most influential and respected Israeli newspaper because of both its news coverage and its commentary, according to the Center for Research Library.106

The overall numbers reported below do not include the articles that were discarded from the analysis. Articles were discarded based on my discretion for reasons such as irrelevance, such as an article that was pulled in by mistake because of a hyperlink, and repetition. All articles gathered were published between September 1, 2016 and October 1, 2019. This time period was selected in order to fully encompass the 2016 U.S. election, as well as a few months preceding it, in order to make the analysis of the New York Times relevant to this study. October 1 was chosen as the final date so there could be an end point of analysis.

The following keyword searches were conducted in the Haaretz archives via the

NewsBank database: “Netanyahu” and “fake news” (109 articles); “Netanyahu” and “liberal media” (9); “Netanyahu” and “lying press” (2); “Trump” and “fake news” (194); “Trump” and

“liberal media” (12), and “Trump” and “lying press” (2). Additionally, 78 articles were returned from the keyword searches “Trump” and “fake news” and “Netanyahu and “fake news.” “Fake news” rhetoric has been pervasive in Israel since the 1990s, as propagated by Netanyahu and the rest of Yitzhak Rabin’s opposition. Additionally, the articles are gathered from news sections of the paper, opinion pieces, and editorials.

106 “CRL Obtains Haaretz,” Center for Research Studies, 2011, https://www.crl.edu/focus/article/7331.

41 The themes ascertained from the analyzed Haaretz articles are reflected in coverage of both Trump and Netanyahu. I identified the themes by identifying the content covered and sorting the content into corresponding themes in Microsoft Excel for analysis. Some themes present overlapping or otherwise interrelated concepts. The themes gathered from articles analyzed from the Times reflect coverage of Trump, unless otherwise noted.

The following keyword searches were conducted in the New York Times archive via the

Nexis Lexis database: “Trump” and “fake news” (1,406 articles); “Trump” and “liberal media”

(50); “Trump” and “lying press” (2); “Netanyahu” and “fake news” (20); “Netanyahu” and

“liberal media” (3), and “Netanyahu” and “lying press” (0). Additionally, I chose to discard returns from the Times’ daily news briefings and stock market briefings. The articles analyzed have been gathered from many sections of the paper, including editorials.

42 Chapter three: Haaretz Analysis

This was nothing Haaretz reporters hadn’t seen before. As a left-leaning media outlet based in Tel Aviv, Israel, the newspaper was no stranger to delegitimizing, anti-media rhetoric from government officials – mainly, from right-wing parties like Likud and the party’s most prominent politician, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The following keyword searches were conducted in the Haaretz archives via the

NewsBank database: “Netanyahu” and “fake news” (109 articles); “Netanyahu” and “liberal media” (9); “Netanyahu” and “lying press” (2); “Trump” and “fake news” (194); “Trump” and

“liberal media” (12), and “Trump” and “lying press” (2). Additionally, 78 articles were returned from the keyword searches “Trump” and “fake news” and “Netanyahu and “fake news.”

The themes ascertained from the analyzed Haaretz articles are reflected in coverage of both Trump and Netanyahu. These themes include immigration, international affairs, “fake news” and anti-media rhetoric, elections, collusion and indictment charges, social media, and the rise of right-wing populism and white nationalism.

Immigration and nativism

Haaretz reported on Netanyahu and Trump’s rhetoric and policies used against immigrants. From coverage of border walls to the general racist rhetoric against immigrants,

Haaretz reported on the similarities between the two leader’s views on immigrants, nativism, and ethnonational supremacy.

For example, the article from the U.S. News: Analysis section, “Like Brother-in-blood

Netanyahu, Trump Incites First and Cries Innocent Later,” published by Haaretz on August 6,

43 2019, recalls a Trump rally in Panama City Beach, Florida, in the aftermath of the El Paso massacre:107

Trump tells his crowd apologetically that unlike other countries, the U.S. cannot order its army to stop the ‘invasion’ by force. ‘How do you stop these people?’ Trump asked his inflamed mob, which responded spontaneously with cries of “Shoot them!” Smiling ruefully at the thought of such a brilliant but unattainable solution, Trump flattered his fans by saying, ‘Only in the Panhandle you can get away with that statement.’ But notwithstanding his obvious wink at the concept of vigilante violence against the ‘invaders’; the fear and loathing of immigrants, African-Americans and other minorities that he nourishes and fosters; and the undeniable fact that the El Paso killer – like his predecessor at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, the Florida letter-bomber sentenced this week to 20 years in jail, and two dozen other hate crime perpetrators and wannabes who have been apprehended by the police – quoted his vile invective almost word for word, in his own eyes and in those of his disciples, Trump is innocent. Mental health, violent video games, ‘fake news’ press, his political rivals and, of course, the hapless immigrants themselves are the guilty parties.108

The above quote outlines both the implications of and motives behind Trump’s rhetoric and policies, and similarly applies them to the rhetoric and policies of Benjamin Netanyahu, recalling similarly incensed rallies of the latter – specifically, a protest against the Oslo Accords that occurred in 1995 in Jerusalem. Demonstrations against the Oslo Accords, which aspired to further a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine, illustrate similar ethnonationalist rhetoric found in Trump’s thinly veiled white supremacist rhetoric against immigrants, Muslims, and other non-white, non-Christian groups.109

Both Trump and Netanyahu have enacted policies meant specifically to deter the immigration of certain groups to the countries that they lead. Trump enacted a travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries within his first few days in office, and also has overseen the

107 The mass shooting took place at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on August 3, 2019. Twenty-two people were murdered and 24 were injured. The shooter drove over ten hours to that particular Walmart, and said he specifically wanted to kill Mexicans and was motivated by anti-immigration rhetoric. 108 Chemi Shalev. “Like Netanyahu, Trump Incites First and Cries Innocent Later.” Haaretz, August 6, 2019, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-like-brother-in-blood-netanyahu-trump-incites-first-and-cries-innocent- later-1.7645632. 109 King Bibi, 2018.

44 expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and allowed for families to be separated at the United States-Mexico border. In a similar vein, Netanyahu abandoned a United

Nations agreement meant to grant asylum to non-Jewish African refugees in Israel and has overseen the crackdown on and expulsion of Filipino workers in Israel.110 In a tweet from

January of 2017, Netanyahu voiced his support for the wall Trump vowed to build at the U.S.-

Mexico border, claiming that the border wall between Israel and Egypt was a “great success.”111

In response to the backfire he faced from the tweet, including a demand for an apology from the

Mexican government, “Netanyahu accused the media of exaggerating the crisis with Mexico following a tweet by the premier in which he voiced support for U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Netanyahu also cited the border fence that

Israel built on the Egyptian border as successful in stopping the flow of migrants into Israel.

"The leftist media is on a Bolshevik witch hunt, brainwashing and character assassination against me and my family," Netanyahu said at a Knesset faction meeting.”112

110Sam Sokol, “Israel’s crackdown on Filipino workers is driving some families into hiding,” The Times of Israel, September 24, 2019. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-crackdown-on-filipino-workers-is-driving-some- families-into-hiding/ Adam Taylor, Netanyahu scraps U.N. deal to resettle African asylum seekers, The Washington Post, April 3, 2018, 111Barak Ravid and Chaim Levinson, “Mexico Demands Israeli Apology After Netanyahu Voices Support for Trump's Wall,” Haaretz, January 30, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/mexico-demands-apology-for- netanyahu-s-support-of-trump-s-wall-1.5492348 112 Ibid.

45 Trump-Netanyahu and the changing US/Israel relationship

The relationship between the United States and Israel has undoubtedly changed under the leadership of Trump and Netanyahu. Trump’s Israel policies have been unprecedented in the

American presidency and in U.S. policy: under his leadership, he has relocated the American

Embassy to Jerusalem and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and the occupied West Bank. The aforementioned policy decisions are illegal according to Article 49 of the fourth Geneva Convention.113

Haaretz’s coverage of Trump and Netanyahu’s relationship illustrates the changing relationship, both in policy and interpersonally, between the two leaders. Reporters depict Trump and Netanyahu’s relationship as cordial, recalling their meetings as a show of mutual admiration and affection. Trump’s visits to Israel were often described as receiving a celebrity: The article

“Fake News and Divided Jews: Reliving the Crazy First Year of President Donald Trump,” published by Haaretz on December 27, 2017, noted Trump’s “…much-hyped and largely successful whirlwind visit to the Jewish state in mid-May contained some moments that were unforgettable – and others that were memorable for other reasons. Who can forget…MK Oren

Hazan’s infamous selfie; Sara Netanyahu’s blatant fangirling of the American first lady; or the

U.S. president’s ‘bizarrely chipper’ note left at Yad Vashem.”114

Similarly, an article published on May 17, 2017 entitled “Parochial Israeli Reception

Makes Even Vulgar President Trump Look Statesmanlike” recalled Sara Netanyahu’s reception

113 Article 49 of the fourth Geneva Convention states that “Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.” It also states that “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/WebART/380-600056 114 Allison Kaplan Sommer, “Fake News and Divided Jews: Reliving the Crazy First Year of President Donald Trump,” Haaretz, December 29, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/reliving-the-crazy-first-year-of-president- donald-trump-1.5629788

46 of the Trumps upon their visit to Israel: “Like the Trumps, she declared, the Netanyahus are disliked by the media but loved by the people. Then she said she and ‘Donald’ had a special connection due to that same media. But we’ll talk all about that at dinner, she assured Melania

Trump, who stood there frozen, not a muscle in her face moving.”115

The general similarities between Trump and Netanyahu are outlined in the July 2017 article “Synchronicity: 13 Ways in Which the New Trump and Netanyahu Messes Are Eerily

Similar”:

What is certain is that both leaders are under pressure. They’re starting to feel cornered. Based on past experience, that means that citizens of both countries should batten down their hatches. You can expect both Trump and Netanyahu to lash out at ‘fake news’ media, to bash their critics, to allude to massive conspiracies masterminded by their political rivals and to seek dramatic diversions that will focus attention elsewhere.116

Additionally, since the election of Trump in 2016, “Trumpian” or “Trump-like” have been used as vehicles for description, mainly when addressing anti-media or nativist sentiment.

The opinion article “Israel’s Right Clings to Conspiracies Again” from July 2017 refers to

Netanyahu’s media delegitimizations in “Trumpian terms.”117

In another example, the article “Israel Election 2019: Right-wing Bloc in Clear Lead as

Netanyahu and Gantz Remain Tied,” published on April 10, 2019, states:

There was even some ‘fake news’ from Likud, claiming that the Labor Party had a “deal with the Arab parties! We have to stop this disaster!” However, most Likud texts struck a tone of victimization, Trump-style, pointing an accusing finger at the media.118

115 Ibid. 116 Chemi Shalev, “Synchronicity: 13 Ways in Which the New Trump and Netanyahu Messes Are Eerily Similar,” Haaretz, July 12, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-13-ways-in-which-new-trump-and- netanyahu-messes-are-eerily-similar-1.5493561. 117 Nitzan Horowitz, “Israel's Right Clings to Conspiracies Again,” Haaretz, July 18, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-israel-s-right-clings-to-conspiracies-again-1.5494805. 118 Haaretz staff, “Israel Election 2019: Right-wing Bloc in Clear Lead as Netanyahu and Gantz Remain Tied,” April 10, 2019, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/netanyahu-elections-gantz-vote-updates-results-1.7105719

47 The Likud Party is a right-wing political party in Israel, led by Netanyahu since 2009.119

“Fake news” and anti-media rhetoric

Just as “Trumpian” has become a way to describe the method in which anti-media and nativist sentiment is expressed, “fake news” has become a colloquial – and sometimes, improperly applied – descriptive term. This thesis understands fake news to be systemically disseminated false information meant to misinform the public. This information has become prolific and rapidly distributed alongside the increased popularity and use of social media. The opinion article “Israel’s Right Clings to Conspiracies Again” from July 2017 accounts for the tendency of both Trump and Netanyahu to delegitimize critical media outlets as “fake news”:

Netanyahu, who yearns to be U.S. President Donald Trump, presented a list of media outlets that he accuses of persecuting him, under the heading ‘Fake news.’ That may be an escalation in the prime minister’s obsession with the media, but in Trumpian terms it’s a pale imitation. If Netanyahu wants to be Trump, let him go all the way. Trump has devised a simple test: Any negative report about him, no matter where, is a lie, ‘fake news’ – only the positive reports are true.120

Haaretz reports on the threatening and sometimes violent tone that was employed alongside “fake news” rhetoric. Netanyahu’s rhetorical attacks on the press often take on the tone of the former, with less coverage of rhetorical attacks that could be construed as encouraging violence. Rather, he paints the mainstream media as a leftist tool that seeks Israel’s demise. In the wake of his indictment charges on fraud, bribery, and breach of trust, Netanyahu spoke to a crowd in Lod, as reported by the article “Netanyahu Assails Israel's ‘Fake News Industry’ to

Thousands of Supporters,” published on August 30, 2017:

119 Likud Party: History and Overview, Jewish Virtual Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and- overview-of-the-likud-party. 120 Nitzan Horowitz, “Israel's Right Clings to Conspiracies Again,” Haaretz, July 18, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-israel-s-right-clings-to-conspiracies-again-1.5494805

48 Party organizers handed out pro-Netanyahu signs to those in attendance. In his speech, Netanyahu attacked the press: ‘The media prefer to present Israel as isolated and backwards. They simply don’t want Israelis to see the success.’ He then tried to demonstrate how the press has decided to work against him, calling out the “unfairness of the industry of gloom” and the “fake news” spread the day before by the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper in its report on his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week.121

Trump, on the other hand, continually weaponizes rhetoric against the press in a manner that can be perceived as encouraging violence against the press. In the article “Trump Escalates

Attack on the Media, Warns Journalists ‘Can Cause War,’” published on August 5, 2018,

Haaretz reported:

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted early Sunday morning that the ‘Fake News’ is ‘very dangerous & sick’ and can ‘can cause a war!’ Trump's tweet came the morning after he spoke at a rally in Ohio in which CNN's Jim Acosta was jeered at by a mob. ‘The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it’s TRUE. I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!’122

Additionally, in the news story “Morning Joe Panel: After Trump's Latest Media Attack,

‘America Has Gone Off the Reservation’” published on July 3, 2017, Haaretz reported that

“Monday morning's episode took place less than twenty-four hours after Donald Trump tweeted a spoof video of himself ‘beating up CNN - in an apparent celebration of his defeat of the ‘fake news media.’”123

In this vein, “fake news” terminology has permeated the lexicon of people around the world. Haaretz reporting sometimes reflects the linguistic impact of “fake news” by using the

121 Jonathan Lis and Lee Yaron, “Netanyahu Assails Israel's 'Fake News Industry' to Thousands of Supporters”, August 30, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-assails-israel-s-fake-news-industry-to-thousands- of-supporters-1.5447063 122 Haaretz staff, “Trump Escalates Attack on the Media, Warns Journalists 'Can Cause War,’” Haaretz, August 5, 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/trump-escalates-attack-on-the-media-warns-journalists-can- cause-war-1.6342542 123 Haaretz staff, “'Morning Joe' Panel: After Trump's Latest Media Attack, 'America Has Gone Off the Reservation,’” Haaretz, July 3, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/morning-joe-panel-america-has-gone-off- the-reservation-1.5491495.

49 term in a way that is not consistent with its meaning, or out of the context of media delegitimization by leaders such as Trump and Netanyahu. For instance, the news article “Did the Jews Kill Themselves at Masada Rather Than Fall Into Roman Hands?” recounts the history of Masada, the ruins of a fortress in southern Israel famous for the collective suicide of Jewish soldiers who would rather kill themselves than fall to the Romans, and poses the question: “But is the story behind Masada and the suicide of the Jews cornered there, rather than capitulate to

Roman hegemony, fake news?”124

The opinion article “They Subjugate Hebrew, Too,” published on September 9, 2018, remarks on the tendency of authoritarian leaders to manipulate the meaning of words and the general understanding of language. The author recalls the work of Masha Gessen, a Russian-

American journalist-activist and outspoken critic of Putin and Trump:

In the Soviet Union, everyone took part in what were called ‘elections,’ which she writes ‘were also known as the ‘free expression of citizen will.’ Voting was mandatory, and consisted of ‘receiving a pre-filled ballot ... and depositing it in the ballot box’ — which was also ‘called the ‘free expression of citizen will,’ Gessen writes. Thus, words like ‘election,’ ‘free,’ ‘citizen’ and ‘will’ were emptied of all meaning. When the Soviet regime collapsed, citizens were left without a language with which to debate their political will, since these words had become cynical jokes. Later, Vladimir Putin did new damage to the language, advancing concepts such as “dictatorship of the law” and ‘managed democracy.’ So it is now in the United States, Gessen writes, as Trump has eviscerated of their meaning such words as ‘fake,’ ‘news,’ ‘media,’ ‘truth’ and ‘justice.’”125

124 Elizabeth Sloane, “Did the Jews Kill Themselves at Masada Rather Than Fall Into Roman Hands?”, Haaretz, May 16, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/MAGAZINE-is-the-masada-tradition-true-1.5472686 125 Zehava Galon, “They Subjugate Hebrew, Too,” Haaretz, September 9, 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-they-subjugate-hebrew-too-1.6464477

50 Elections

This analysis found that Israeli and American elections are often reported by Haaretz in relation to “fake news” because of the rampant and systemic distribution of false information via social media, messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, and information gathered by the public from non-mainstream news channels. The occurrence of the aforementioned prolific distribution influenced the outcome of the U.S. election in 2016, as well as the Israeli elections in 2019.126

“Fake elections,” a Haaretz article published on November 16, 2018, illustrated Israeli fears of “…an increasingly common problem, in which politicians and their aides use their

Facebook pages, bots, fake websites and slanderous falsehoods sent via WhatsApp and text messages as key tools in their election campaigns” ahead of the first Israeli election of 2019 in light of the results of the 2016 election in the United States, and how rapidly disseminated false information via social media channels impacted that election. The article continues:

As the events leading to Donald Trump’s election showed, users have trouble distinguishing between truth and fiction, and social media networks have trouble figuring out who is behind such campaigns and who is funding them…It looks like the “post- truth” era isn’t going anywhere. It’s also clear that fake news in Israel won’t stop at the local elections.127

Similarly, Haaretz reports on how the 2016 U.S. election and the role that fake news played in its outcome influenced the Israeli political landscape leading up to elections. An editorial from January 2018 entitled “Who's Afraid of Transparency?” outlines this mindset:

Recent history has shown how much the internet in general, and social media in particular, have become sophisticated propaganda tools in anonymous hands, sometimes belonging to foreign interests seeking to undermine the legal foundations of Western democracies. Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign and Brexit referendum in Britain, efforts are being made around the world to fight “fake news” on the internet, targeted marketing of messages on social media, paid-for user comments, smear videos and armies of bots and fake user profiles whose sole purpose is to hijack the conversation

126 Haaretz editorial, “Fake elections,” Haaretz, November 16, 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/fake-elections-1.6657526 127 Haaretz editorial, “Fake elections.”

51 and sway elections. Worries about these practices have been raised in Israel as well. Only last week, Shin Bet security service chief Nadav Argaman warned that a foreign state plans to interfere in the April 9 general election using cyber technology. But not only do foreign actors threaten to meddle in the elections by means of anonymous disinformation. Israel has already seen campaigns that exploited online social networks to create fake user accounts, disseminate fake news and manipulate public opinion. By way of example, during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, the internet was used to spread hatred and deepen divisions.128

The predictions about fake news and the role it could potentially play on elections projected in the prior articles manifested in the 2019 Israeli elections. Under the headline “Forget

Facebook, Israelis’ Phones Are Blowing Up With Fake Election Texts,” a Haaretz article published on April 9, 2019 reported that, on the day of Israel’s first election in 2019:

Israeli phones exploded with panicked text messages throughout the day Tuesday as political parties used multiple forms of manipulation — from fear to guilt to anger — to get potential voters to the polls. Strict laws in Israel forbidding electioneering or new polling on television and radio proved absurd in the digital age as voters were electronically bombarded from both right and left, the messaging growing more hysterical as the 10 P.M. closing of the polls drew nearer.129

Haaretz also reported on the U.S. election and fake news unrelated to the Israeli elections or to Netanyahu. In the story “Trump Inadvertently Confirms Russia Helped Elect Him in Attack on Mueller Probe,” published on May 30, 2019, Haaretz reported that “Trump tweeted, “Russia,

Russia, Russia! That’s all you heard at the beginning of this Witch Hunt Hoax...And now Russia has disappeared because I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected. It was a crime that didn’t exist. So now the Dems and their partner, the Fake News Media[…]”130

128 Haaretz editorial, “Who’s Afraid of Transparency?”, January 16, 2019, https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/who-s-afraid-of-transparency-1.6846749. Operation Protective Edge was the conflict between Israel and Gaza in 2014. 129 Allison Kaplan Sommer, “Forget Facebook, Israelis' Phones Are Blowing Up With Fake Election Texts,” Haaretz, April 9, 2019, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/forget-facebook-israelis-phones-are-blowing- up-with-fake-election-texts-1.7107017 130 Haaretz, “Trump Attacks Mueller Probe - Inadvertently Confirms Russia Helped Elect Him,” Haaretz, May 30, 2019, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/trump-attacks-mueller-probe-confirms-russia-helped-elect-him-1.7307566

52 Additionally, a few Haaretz articles use the rise of “fake news” to report on efforts made to increase media literacy. The article “Massive Manipulation, Foreign Influence Campaign and

Cyber: The Threats to Israel's Election,” published on January 9, 2019, reported that “Check

Point calls on voters to be on the lookout for fake news: ‘Biased writing, which is usually emotional or interpretative, can be identified.’ Another suspicious sign is oddly translated texts and misspellings, which might suggest it had originally been written in a different language and translated using machine translation.”131

Collusion and indictment charges

Both Trump and Netanyahu use rhetoric meant to delegitimize the mainstream media in order to deflect criticism of any sort. While such criticism stems from many areas, Haaretz reports largely on two avenues for criticism: Accusations of Trump’s collusion with Russia

(prior to impeachment) and Netanyahu’s indictment charges.

On November 21, 2019, Israel’s attorney general announced his intent to indict

Netanyahu on three charges: two on fraud and breach of trust, and one on bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. The latter cases involved bribery for favorable coverage from Yedioth Ahronoth and Walla, two popular Israeli mainstream media outlets.132 133 In the article “Netanyahu Assails

Israel's ‘Fake News Industry’ to Thousands of Supporters,” published by Haaretz on August 30,

2017, Netanyahu is reported as saying:

131 Amitai Ziv, “Massive Manipulation, Foreign Influence Campaign and Cyber: The Threats to Israel's Election,” Haaretz, January 9, 2019, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/massive-manipulation-foreign-influence- campaign-and-cyber-the-threats-to-israel-s-election-1.6822455 132 Haaretz and Reuters, “Netanyahu Reelected: Everything You Need to Know About the Prime Minister's Corruption Scandals.” 133 David M. Halbfinger, “Israel’s Netanyahu Indicted on Charges of Fraud, Bribery and Breach of Trust,” The New York Times, November 21, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/world/middleeast/netanyahu-corruption- indicted.html

53 The fake news industry is at its peak…Look, for example, how they cover with unlimited enthusiasm, every week, the left-wing demonstrations. The same demonstrations whose goal is to apply improper pressure on law enforcement authorities so they will file an indictment [against me] at any price: ‘Netanyahu is guilty until he is proven innocent.’134

Haaretz reported on Trump similarly delegitimizing stories of him collaborating with

Russia in any form. “Trump's ‘Witch-hunt’ Tweets Shatter Show of Unity After Scalise

Shooting,” published on June 15, 2017, noted that Trump was

[a]ngered by Wednesday’s report in the Washington Post that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was investigating him for possible obstruction of justice, Trump let loose with a barrage of tweets alleging fake news and ‘the single greatest witch hunt in American history,’ no less. ‘They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice,’ Trump wrote.135

The tendency of media delegitimization was also noted in the article “Playboy Reporter

Comes Out Against Trump, Becomes Liberal Media's Unexpected Hero,” published on June 29,

2017. In reference to Trump: “Accusing the media of a ‘constant barrage of fake news directed at this president’ and calling news stories about Trump's alleged links to Russia a ‘hoax,’ [White

House Press Secretary Sarah] Huckabee Sanders said: ‘News outlets get to go on day after day and cite unnamed sources, use stories without sources.’”136 This accusation from Sanders is meant to undermine news outlets and their credibility.

134Jonathan Lis and Lee Yaron, “Netanyahu Assails Israel's 'Fake News Industry' to Thousands of Supporters.” 135 Chemi Shalev, “Trump's ‘Witch-hunt’ Tweets Shatter Show of Unity After Scalise Shooting,” Haaretz, July 15, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-trump-s-witch-hunt-tweets-shatter-show-of-unity-after-scalise- shooting-1.5484859 136 Taly Krupkin, “Playboy Reporter Comes Out Against Trump, Becomes Liberal Media's Unexpected Hero,” Haaretz, June 20, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-playboy-reporter-slams-trump-becomes- media-s-hero-1.5490460

54 Creating alternative channels for media; subverting the mainstream media

Besides reporting on Netanyahu’s rhetoric, which he has used to delegitimize the mainstream press, Haaretz reports on instances in which both Trump and Netanyahu subvert mainstream media platforms. Both leaders achieve this by projecting their messages directly to constituents via social media.

In January 2019, Haaretz published an article entitled “Here’s How Netanyahu Runs His

Social Media Empire.” This article outlines Netanyahu’s process of subverting the mainstream media via social media:

“At 8 p.m. I will deliver a special message to the media. You’re invited to follow my Facebook page,” Benjamin Netanyahu announced on his Twitter page on Monday. Thus the prime minister set a precedent for his manipulation of the public: He announced via social media that he would give a statement on prime time TV, that could be viewed via his Facebook profile. You could say that Netanyahu, a veritable social opinion wizard, pioneered that method back in his first term in the 1990s, when he was one of the first politicians to create a website as a means of communication. “Now you’re not dependent on media analyses and intermediaries. You can ask what you want, decide what you see and decide for yourselves,” he said in his first video for that site. Aside from his rare appearances on Channels 9 and 20, Netanyahu has ceased addressing Israel’s public via traditional media. Instead, he has dozens of posts a day on social media, including views and tweets, and his followers’ high response rate influences the algorithms of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, helping him to attract new followers and get his message across. Thus Netanyahu reaches elderly citizens via traditional media, and younger Israelis on social media. According to official statistics, Netanyahu’s televised declaration had ratings of 45.5% across Reshet, Keshet, Channel 10, Can 11, Channel 9 and Channel 20. In other words, 4.5 million people watched him live on TV, and another 120,000 watched the video on Facebook.137

This shows that Netanyahu has skillfully perfected the art of reaching his audience without any need for a media organization to amplify his messages.

A month later, Haaretz published an article, “Netanyahu Launches His Own TV Channel,

With News Hosted by a Reality Star,” detailing the creation of a Likud Facebook TV Channel:

137 Rafaella Golchman, “Netanyahu Presides Over a Social Media Empire. Here's How He Runs It,” Haaretz, January 17, 2019, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/netanyahu-presides-over-a-social-media-empire- here-s-how-he-runs-it-1.6846655

55 “The establishment of the new Facebook TV channel, designated for broadcasting election propaganda, and cheekily presenting it as a purveyor of only true, non-fake news, is another step in that direction.”138 Thus, Netanyahu successfully creates direct one-way communication links to his constituents while simultaneously degrading the legitimacy and importance of mainstream media outlets.

Haaretz has also reported on the phenomenon of Twitter’s evolution into a legitimate quoting source, as well as the foreground for international diplomacy decisions and confrontations between world leaders. This is reflected in extensive quoting of Trump’s Twitter and stories about his often-controversial tweets. Trump’s tweets are reported as direct quotes, such as “The fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred.

@MSNBC & @CNN are unwatchable. @foxandfriends is great!”139 in the article “Trump Slams

‘un-American' Leaks From NSA, FBI: ‘Just Like Russia,’” published on February 15, 2017, and

“Some members of the media are very Angry at the Fake Story in the New York Times. They actually called to complain and apologize - a big step forward. From the day I announced, the

Times has been Fake News, and with their disgusting new Board Member, it will only get worse!”140 as quoted in the article “Trump Rages on Twitter: Mueller Makes McCarthy Look

Like a Baby,” published on August 18, 2019. This mocks Trump and his reference to McCarthy, a former U.S. senator that targeted anyone he labeled as a communist during the Second Red

Scare in the 1940s and 50s, shows the lengths that Trump goes to play victim.

138 Shany Littman, “Netanyahu Launches His Own TV Channel, With News Hosted by a Reality Star,” Haaretz, February 4, 2019, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/.premium-netanyahu-launches-his-own-tv- channel-with-news-hosted-by-a-reality-star-1.6909239 139 Haaretz, “Trump Slams 'un-American' Leaks From NSA, FBI: 'Just Like Russia,'” Haaretz, February 15, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/trump-slams-un-american-leaks-from-nsa-fbi-just-like-russia-1.5435635 140 Haaretz, “Trump Rages on Twitter: Mueller Makes McCarthy Look Like a Baby,” Haaretz, August 19, 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/trump-rages-on-twitter-mueller-makes-mccarthy-look-like-a-baby-1.6389957

56 Rise of right-wing populism and authoritarianism

Articles that report on the actions of Trump and Netanyahu often also include reporting on the actions of other right-leaning populist leaders, such as Vladimir Putin of Russia and Recep

Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey.

The article “Impeccable Timing and Brilliant Campaigning Give Netanyahu His Biggest

Win Yet,” published on April 10, 2019, recounts the mutualistic relationship and shared tactics of such leaders in light of Netanyahu’s re-election:

Whether it was [false] news stories about Benny Gantz’s phone being hacked or the ex- army chief seeing a psychologist, Netanyahu always managed to make the issue about his challenger’s unsuitability for office rather than his own. When it looked like a network of fake Twitter accounts had been uncovered working for him, Netanyahu brilliantly turned the tables on the opposition with his “We’re not bots” press conference last week. And there were the convenient, right-on-cue interventions from abroad — courtesy of U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro — to present him as the master statesman...For all the lies and fake news coming from Netanyahu and his team throughout the campaign, his initial reaction to the exit polls Tuesday was much more accurate than Gantz’s. Netanyahu said “the right-wing bloc led by Likud has won” — and he was ultimately proved right.141

The rise of white nationalism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Muslim bigotry

In August of 2017, a group of white nationalists marched through Charlottesville,

Virginia, proclaiming that “Jews will not replace us!” and spouting other such racist and anti-

Semitic epithets.142 This occurrence was seen by many as the mainstreaming of white supremacy and white nationalism in the United States via the rhetoric and actions of Trump.

141 Anshel Pfeffer, “Impeccable Timing and Brilliant Campaigning Give Netanyahu His Biggest Win Yet,” Haaretz, April 11, 2019, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/.premium-israel-election-2019-how-netanyahu-won- the-election-1.7108738 142 Fausset, Richard, Serge F. Kovaleski and Alan Feuer. “A Year After Charlottesville, Disarray in the White Supremacist Movement,” Haaretz, August 13, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/us/charlottesville-unite- the-right-white-supremacists.html

57 As mentioned earlier in the analysis, anti-immigration and nativist sentiment is commonplace in the rhetoric of right-wing populist leaders such as Trump and Netanyahu.

Haaretz reports on the conspiracy theories and anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic bigotry that is characteristic of white nationalism, as well as the rise of such rhetoric since the 2016 U.S. election. Similarly, Haaretz reports on the anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian bigotry espoused by Netanyahu and the Likud party.

The article “How I Missed the Eclipse and Discovered the Dark Side of America” is an account of first-hand encounters with white supremacists in the United States published on

August 31, 2017:

These young men also claimed to be enthusiastic Trump supporters. They’re positive that he’s the only leader who can cope with “the waves of illegal immigration from Mexico,” and with the Black Lives Matter movement, which they characterize as “fake news that was created by the left-wing media, egged on by Obama.” They also trust Trump to be able to deal with the Jews, “who control the big corporations and the banking system.” They said they had learned about these ideas mainly via the internet and far-right Facebook groups, whose activity had grown by leaps and bounds in the past few months, they claimed.143

Haaretz reports on how Trump pedals conspiracy theories directly, illustrated in the article “Trump Tweets anti-Semitic, Conspiracy Theorist Website Boasting About His

Accomplishments,” published on November 26, 2017. Haaretz also published extensive coverage of the Tree of Life shooting that occurred in Pittsburgh at the Tree of Life synagogue on October 27, 2018, in Squirrel Hill, a Pittsburgh suburb. A white supremacist entered the synagogue and opened fire on congregants at Shabbat services. Eleven people were murdered.

Conspiracy theories and white nationalist, anti-Semitic rhetoric that motivated the shooter.

143 Shay Fogelman, “How I Missed the Eclipse and Discovered the Dark Side of America,” Haaretz, September 1, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-how-i-almost-missed-the-eclipse-and-discovered- the-dark-side-of-america-1.5447371

58 Additionally, the article “Trump Slams Shepard Smith and Fox News After Anchor Says White

Nationalism Is a Real Problem,” published on August 8, 2019, illustrates the violence Trump’s rhetoric inspires:

Smith, while covering former Vice President Joe Biden's speech on race concluded “white nationalism is without question a serious problem in America.” U.S. President Donald Trump later attacked Smith on Twitter writing, “Watching Fake News CNN is better than watching Shepard Smith, the lowest rated show on @FoxNews. Actually, whenever possible, I turn to @OANN!”...Trump is facing criticism after a white gunman apparently wrote an anti-Hispanic rant before opening fire with an AK-47-style rifle in an El Paso Walmart killing twenty two shoppers — many of them Latino. The shooter echoed Trump's language calling Hispanic Americans “invaders.”144

This could be a case for incitement in the United States, per the standards set up by the landmark Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). This case deemed that speech can be prohibited if it is “directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and if it is “likely to incite or produce such action.”145

Similarly, Netanyahu relied heavily on anti-Arab tropes to discourage voter turnout and pedal conspiracy theories about Arab residents of Israel, as well as the Palestinian population at large. In the article “The Real Danger Posed by Populist Leaders, and How to Fight It,” published on August 23, 2017, such rhetorical tactics are outlined in the context of the rise of nativism:

…the categorization of political rivals as foreign and inhuman is an expression of the logic that typifies populist politicians everywhere – from Donald Trump in the United States to Viktor Orban in Hungary and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel...When Orban, Trump and other populists sing the praises of “the nation” or “the people,” they are referring not to all the country’s citizens, of course, but only to their own supporters. That division into a pure, legitimate people and all the rest is not unfamiliar to Israeli ears. In fact, it runs like a thread through many of Netanyahu’s remarks across the years. From, “The left has forgotten what it is to be a Jew,” to “They have V15, we have the people,” and, recently, “The people go to vote, the left hatches plots.” Mueller says he regrets not

144 Haaretz, “Trump Slams Shepard Smith and Fox News After Anchor Says White Nationalism Is a Real Problem,” Haaretz, August 8, 2019, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/trump-slams-shepard-smith-and-fox-news-after- segment-on-white-nationalism-being-real-1.7651468 145 Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).

59 including in his latest book, “What is Populism?” (University of Pennsylvania Press; 2016), the notorious statement made by Netanyahu on Election Day 2015 about Israel’s Arabs flocking to the polling stations “in droves,” as an example of a populist remark of the sort “one simply does not utter in a democracy.”...So many new concepts burst into our lives over the past year – “populism,” “post-truth,” “fake news” and “alternative facts,” to name a few – and all of them roll trippingly off the tongue.146

Netanyahu has also used his heavily trafficked social media platforms to pedal false information. The article “Netanyahu Takes 5 Days to Delete Fake News Facebook Post

Attacking Arab-Israeli Soccer Club,” published on May 3, 2018, recounts a

Facebook post erroneously accusing fans of the Arab-Israeli soccer club Bnei Sakhnin of whistling and booing during a minute of silence in memory of the 10 teenagers who drowned in southern Israel last week. The prime minister deleted the post on Thursday, five days after posting it. Netanyahu based his post on a story on the Arutz Sheva news website, but an inquiry found that the accusation was baseless and that the team’s fans had neither whistled nor booed during the moment of silence. On Sunday, the day after a match between Bnei Sakhnin and Hapoel Ra’anana, Netanyahu wrote on his Facebook page, “It’s a disgrace and a shame. I expect of all leaders, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, to strongly condemn this shameful behavior.” Even though it quickly turned out that the Arutz Sheva report had been wrong, he left the post up for five days, making 18 other posts in the interim.147

Zionism and American Judaism

Like all major publications, Haaretz is aware of its target audience. Because a great deal of Haaretz’s readers do not live in Israel, coverage extends well beyond Israel. Haaretz is popular in North America and with the American Jewish community. Thus, Haaretz reports on many stories that American Jews may find to be relevant or otherwise important.

146 Yonatan Levi, “The Real Danger Posed by Populist Leaders, and How to Fight It,” Haaretz, August 24, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-the-real-danger-posed-by-populist-leaders-like-trump- and-netanyahu-1.5445180 147 Haaretz, “Netanyahu Takes 5 Days to Delete Fake News Facebook Post Attacking Arab-Israeli Soccer Club,” Haaretz, May 3, 2019, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/pm-finally-deletes-false-accusation-against-arab- israeli-soccer-club-1.6053892

60 Most American Jews don’t support Trump. According to a poll conducted by Bend the

Arc, a progressive Jewish nonprofit, 75% of American Jews hold him in an unfavorable view.148

While many are critical of Netanyahu, a majority of Jewish Americans still identify with

Zionism to some degree.149 This is illustrated in the article “The Seven Worst anti-Israel Events in the Year Since Trump's Election,” published on November 7, 2017:

Netanyahu has shattered a 70-year-long relationship with North American Jewry, a bond long seen as one of Israel's primary strategic assets...Netanyahu reinvents himself as Trump Part II - Dismisses as "Fake News" all allegations of wrongdoing, while impugning and stonewalling senior government investigators and prosecutors – further cementing his bond with the Republican Party and mega-donor Sheldon Adelson – and further alienating and angering Democrats, who include the vast majority of U.S. Jews.150

Haaretz also reported extensively on the Tree of Life shooting and the anti-Trump protests that followed it. For example, the article “Trump Slams Protests as 'Staged' and 'Fake

News' After Pittsburgh Visit,” published on October 31, 2018, reports that “[a]fter visiting the

Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday that he was treated warmly by the community and that the media's portrayal of protests is "fake news."...After the visit, Trump tweeted: ‘Small protest was not seen by us, staged far away. The

Fake News stories were just the opposite-Disgraceful!’”151

148 Jeff Lizst and Samantha Gilbert, “Recent Polling among American Jewish Voters,” Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, February 4, 2020, https://www.bendthearc.us/votersurvey 149 Frank Newport, “American Jews, Politics and Israel,” Gallup Polling, August 27, 2019, https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/265898/american-jews-politics-israel.aspx 150 Bradley Burston, “The Seven Worst anti-Israel Events in the Year Since Trump's Election,” Haaretz, November 7, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-seven-worst-anti-israel-events-since-trump-s-election- 1.5463714 151 Haaretz, “Trump Slams Protests as 'Staged' and 'Fake News' After Pittsburgh Visit,” Haaretz, October 31, 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/trump-dismisses-protests-as-fake-news-after-pittsburgh-visit-1.6613042

61 Media response and tone of coverage

The articles analyzed exemplify Haaretz reporting on these leaders in a tone that can be perceived as deeply critical, judgmental, and even sarcastic. Articles reflect reporting on the “war on media” respectively launched by Trump and Netanyahu, and terminology such as “attack” when speaking of the leaders’ relationship to the press. In the article “By Bashing the Media,

Trump and Netanyahu Foster Their Tribalist, Right-wing Support,” published on June 24, 2018,

Haaretz examines the rationale of this “war”:

This is the main rationale of the constant campaign waged by leaders such as Trump and Netanyahu against “elites” in general and the “leftist”, “liberal” or “mainstream” media in particular. The media is portrayed as the spearhead of the rival tribe that seeks to deprive the so-called “downtrodden” supporters of the leaders of their recent gains, to enslave them and impose their reviled values on them. It’s a two-headed onslaught that aims to discredit both the messengers and their tidings. On the one hand, the media’s reports and opinions are depicted as “fake news,” the catchy phrase coined by Trump that seem taken, by coincidence or design, from “ Lügenpresse,” or lying press, the notorious term used by German nationalists – especially the Nazis – since the mid-19th century. On the other hand, and alternatively, the media is constantly depicted as hostile and even treasonous – to the nation and the tribe – so that its reports are rejected even if they happen to have facts on their side.152

152 Chemi Shalev, “By Bashing the Media, Trump and Netanyahu Foster Their Tribalist, Right-wing Support,” Haaretz, June 24, 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-trump-and-netanyahu-foster-their-tribalist- right-wing-support-1.6201709

62 Chapter four: New York Times Analysis

All was calm until the first press conference.

“Donald Trump's News Session Starts War With and Within Media,” an article published by the New York Times on January 11, 2017, illustrates a stark shift in the tone used by the Times when reporting on then-President elect Trump. Departing from neutral and restrained tones, the

Times deemed Trump’s “attacks on the press” as such, as well as menacing and mocking.153 The

Times, responding to a new phenomenon of media delegitimization from the commander-in- chief, bolstered their armor by employing more critical terminology when reporting on the president.

The publication analyzed, the New York Times (also referred to as “the Times” throughout this thesis), is a mainstream American newspaper based in New York City. It is widely considered to be left-leaning and publishes daily both print and online. Its print newspaper is published in English, and online there are options to translate stories to Spanish and Chinese. It was established in 1851, and as of January 2019, it reported a circulation of 483,701 – the third largest in the United States.154155

The following keyword searches were conducted in the New York Times archive via the

Nexis Lexis database: “Trump” and “fake news” (1,406 articles); “Trump” and “liberal media”

(50); “Trump” and “lying press” (2); “Netanyahu” and “fake news” (20); “Netanyahu” and

“liberal media” (3), and “Netanyahu” and “lying press” (0). The overall numbers reported do not include the articles that were discarded from the analysis. Articles were discarded based on my

153 Michael M. Grynbaum, “Donald Trump’s News Session Starts War With and Within Media,” New York Times, January 11, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/business/media/donald-trump-buzzfeed-cnn.html 154 “Top 10 U.S. Daily Newspapers,” Cision, January 4, 2019, https://www.cision.com/us/2019/01/top-ten-us-daily- newspapers/ 155 “History,” The New York Times Company, https://www.nytco.com/company/history/

63 discretion for reasons such as irrelevance and repetition. Additionally, I chose to discard returns from daily news briefings and stock market briefings. All articles gathered were published between September 1, 2016 and October 1, 2019.

The following themes have been ascertained from the analyzed coverage of Trump: social media and misinformation, collusion, subverting the mainstream media, educational efforts, the emboldening of racists and white supremacists, the rise of right-wing populism, conspiracy theories, rally coverage, the changing media landscape, popular culture, fact- checking, opinion pieces, international affairs, the treatment of journalists, and science reporting.

When themes apply to coverage of Netanyahu in any way, it will be explicitly noted.

Social media, Google, and misinformation

During the three-year analysis period, the New York Times reported extensively on the rise of social media and its correlation to the increased dissemination of misinformation. The

Times often used rhetoric that was critical of social media organizations and their inability to control the spread of false information.

The article “On Social Media, Lax Enforcement Lets Impostor Accounts Thrive,” published by the Times on February 20, 2018, recounts stories of people whose identities are impersonated on Twitter, how the social media platform did little to stop such impersonation from occurring and did not shut down all of the fake accounts. According to the article:

Neither Facebook nor Twitter requires proof of identity to open a new account, but both require it when reporting impostors. Decisions about whether to take down or suspend an account are automated wherever possible, or farmed out to teams of low-level employees and contractors around the world. As a result, on most social media platforms it is far easier to build a bot than to kill one. 156

156 Nicholas Confessore and Gabriel J.X. Dance, “On Social Media, Lax Enforcement Lets Impostor Accounts Thrive,” New York Times, February 20, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/technology/social-media- impostor-accounts.html

64

The terminology used – in particular, “…farmed out to teams of low-level employees and contractors around the world” – places responsibility on Facebook and Twitter for not adequately handling the existence of imposter accounts.

While false information about a variety of topics, such as dieting and beauty routines, has long manifested on the Internet, the Times focuses their reporting on the systemic dissemination of false information prior to the 2016 election. General speculation, as well as a subsequent investigation into collusion with Russia by the Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, lends itself to the suspicion that the false information rapidly disseminated via social media platforms contributed to Trump’s win in 2016. The aforementioned false information often centered on

Hillary Clinton, voter fraud, anti-immigration sentiment, and other such ideals and conspiracy theories touted by Trump and his campaign. The Times, as a left-leaning paper whose editorial board endorsed Clinton for president in 2016, is critical of social media platforms such as

Facebook for contributing to the election of Trump.157 It is important to note that political reporters in the newsroom are not involved in the endorsement process and are expected to adhere to journalistic norms of objectivity. In the opinion article “Can Facebook Fix Its Own

Worst Bug?”, published on April 25, 2017, columnist Farhad Manjoo writes:

As recently as a year ago, Zuckerberg might have proudly rattled off these facts as a testament to Facebook’s power. But over the course of 2016, Facebook’s gargantuan influence became its biggest liability. During the U.S. election, propagandists — some working for money, others for potentially state-sponsored lulz — used the service to turn fake stories into viral sensations, like the one about Pope Francis’ endorsing Trump (he hadn’t). And fake news was only part of a larger conundrum. With its huge reach, Facebook has begun to act as the great disseminator of the larger cloud of misinformation and half-truths swirling about the rest of media. It sucks up lies from cable news and Twitter, then precisely targets each lie to the partisan bubble most receptive to it.158

157 New York Times editorial board, “Hillary Clinton for president,” New York Times, September 24, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/opinion/sunday/hillary-clinton-for-president.html 158 Farhad Manjoo, “Can Facebook Fix Its Own Worst Bug?” New York Times, April 25, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/magazine/can-facebook-fix-its-own-worst-bug.html?searchResultPosition=1

65 Manjoo deplores Mark Zuckerberg, the C.E.O. and founder of Facebook, for being seemingly unable to see the problems that his social media site has caused:

It was hard to tell how seriously Zuckerberg took the criticisms of his service and its increasingly paradoxical role in the world. He had spent much of his life building a magnificent machine to bring people together. By the most literal measures, he’d succeeded spectacularly, but what had that connection wrought? Across the globe, Facebook now seems to benefit actors who want to undermine the global vision at its foundation. Supporters of Trump and the European right-wing nationalists who aim to turn their nations inward and dissolve alliances, trolls sowing cross-border paranoia, even ISIS with its skillful social-media recruiting and propagandizing — all of them have sought in their own ways to split the Zuckerbergian world apart. And they are using his own machine to do it.159

Manjoo thus places Facebook as a key player in ensuring Trump’s win in the 2016 election by bringing up those who utilized Facebook as a “service” or otherwise vehicle for pedaling false information that worked in Trump’s favor on November 8, 2016.

The Times also reports on the measures being taken by the leadership of social media organizations in the fight against fake news. The article “In Race Against Fake News, Google and Facebook Stroll to the Starting Line,” published in January 2017, recounts the steps being taken by Google and Facebook to combat the spread of misinformation. These measures include promoting reliable news articles through advertisements and “trending topic” sections.160 Even though social media organizations have worked to increase transparency and stop the spread of false information, trust in these mechanisms has decreased – especially in Facebook, post-

Cambridge Analytica scandal, summarized below.

The article “How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions” outlines the aforementioned scandal:

159 Manjoo, “Can Facebook Fix Its Own Worst Bug?” 160 Daisuke Wakabayashi and Mike Isaac, “In Race Against Fake News, Google and Facebook Stroll to the Starting Line,” New York Times, Jan. 25, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/technology/google-facebook-fake-news.html?searchResultPosition=1

66 The firm had secured a $15 million investment from Robert Mercer, the wealthy Republican donor, and wooed his political adviser, Stephen K. Bannon, with the promise of tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior. But it did not have the data to make its new products work. So the firm harvested private information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their permission, according to former Cambridge employees, associates and documents, making it one of the largest data leaks in the social network’s history. The breach allowed the company to exploit the private social media activity of a huge swath of the American electorate, developing techniques that underpinned its work on President Trump’s campaign in 2016.161

This discovery led to significant legal repercussions, especially for Mark Zuckerberg and

Facebook. NPR reported that Facebook agreed to pay a £500,000 (about $643,000) fine to the

U.K.'s Information Commissioner's Office for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.162

Collusion with Russia

The Times reported extensively on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election – both proven and potential. Ample evidence has shown that the Russian government worked to sway the election in Trump’s favor: According to CNN, “[o]n January 13, 2017, the committee announced that it was conducting a probe of Russian meddling. This investigation and others were sparked by a declassified report from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) that described a multifaceted effort led by Russian President Vladimir Putin to interfere with the election by releasing damaging information about Clinton to help Trump.”163

Additionally, extensive reports revealed how “Russian agents intending to sow discord among American citizens disseminated inflammatory posts that reached 126 million users on

161 Matthew Rosenberg, Nicholas Confessore and Carole Cadwalladr, “How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions,” New York Times, March 17, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-trump-campaign.html 162 Paolo Zialcita, “Facebook Pays $643,000 Fine For Role In Cambridge Analytica Scandal,” New York Times, October 30, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/10/30/774749376/facebook-pays-643-000-fine-for-role-in-cambridge- analytica-scandal 163 CNN Editorial Research, “2016 Presidential Election Investigation Fast Facts,” CNN, December 14, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/12/us/2016-presidential-election-investigation-fast-facts/index.html

67 Facebook, published more than 131,000 messages on Twitter and uploaded over 1,000 videos to

Google’s YouTube service, according to copies of prepared remarks from the companies that were obtained by The New York Times.”164

The Internet Research Agency, described by the Times as “a shadowy Russian company linked to the Kremlin,” also purchased a significant amount of advertisements on Facebook,

Google, and other online platforms, all with the intent of creating divisions within American society.165

How to best proceed remains unknown, as reported in the story “Russian Influence

Reached 126 Million Through Facebook Alone”:

For Facebook, Google and Twitter, the discovery of Russian influence by way of their sites has been a rude awakening. The companies had long positioned themselves as spreading information and connecting people for positive ends. Now the companies must grapple with how Russian agents used their technologies exactly as they were meant to be used — but for malevolent purposes. That has led to thorny debates inside the companies. For Facebook, the problem is less straightforward than finding Russia-linked pages and taking down content. Executives worry about how stifling speech from non-American entities could set a precedent on the social network — and how it could potentially be used against other groups in the future…Google said it did not intend to take any further action against state-backed Russian news channel RT, which has built a massive online audience through YouTube. The American intelligence community has described RT as the Kremlin’s “principal international propaganda outlet”, but Google said the organization had not violated any of its policies or misused the service. Last week, by contrast, Twitter said it would ban RT and Sputnik, another Kremlin-backed news organization, from advertising on its service.166

Through its coverage, it is apparent that the Times supported the investigation led by

Robert Mueller, made clear through the number of stories on the investigation and the disdainful tone towards those who opposed the investigation. For example, the article “Trump Lawyer Says

Special Counsel Inquiry Should Be Ended”:

164 Mike Isaac and Daisuke Wakabayashi, “Russian Influence Reached 126 Million Through Facebook Alone,” New York Times, October 30, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/technology/facebook-google-russia.html 165 Ibid. 166 Mike Isaac and Daisuke Wakabayashi, “Russian Influence Reached 126 Million Through Facebook Alone.”

68 On Saturday evening, Mr. Trump for the first time posted a tweet that specifically mentioned the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. The president again denounced the inquiry he is conducting as a “witch hunt.” “The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime,” he wrote. “It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, and improperly used in FISA COURT for surveillance of my campaign.”167

Trump delegitimizes the Mueller investigation in the same manner that he delegitimizes the mainstream media or any other criticism, utilizing terms such as “witch hunt” and fueling conspiracy theories that the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton are out to get him.

Creating alternative channels for media; subverting the mainstream media

False information about current events is, by definition, fake news. Interestingly, whenever Trump does not like coverage of himself, his policies, or his supporters, he is quick to label it as “fake news.” By doing this, Trump capitalizes on the simultaneous rise of rampant misinformation and of the usage and popularity of social media platforms.

The Times reports on Trump and his strategic usage of Twitter. Besides undermining mainstream media outlets by deeming coverage “fake news,” Trump subverts the mainstream media by communicating his platform and ideals directly to constituents through his Twitter page. The Times has also quoted Trump’s tweets in articles, solidifying tweets as a legitimate quoting source:

He is not just indifferent to facts; he can be hostile to any effort to assert them. On Tuesday, Chuck Jones, a union boss at Carrier Corporation, told The Washington Post that Mr. Trump was wrong when he claimed to have saved 1,100 of the company’s jobs from moving to Mexico — the real number will be closer to 730. Rather than admit error,

167 Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman, “Trump Lawyer Says Special Counsel Inquiry Should Be Ended,” New York Times, March 17, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/trump-mueller- dowd.html?searchResultPosition=1

69 the president-elect instead attacked Mr. Jones, a private citizen, on Twitter, saying he had done a “terrible job representing workers.”168

This was not the first time the Times reported on the legality of Trump’s Twitter usage. A group of Twitter users sued Trump for blocking them on Twitter. According to the lawsuit:

The @realDonaldTrump account is a kind of digital town hall in which the president and his aides use the tweet function to communicate news and information to the public, and members of the public use the reply function to respond to the president and his aides and exchange views with one another. 169 170

The fact that the commander-in-chief’s Twitter account is perceived as a “digital town hall” illustrates how seriously his account is perceived. The article “Trump’s Twitter Threats Put

American Credibility on the Line,” published in January 2018, outlines Trump’s threats on foreign governments that he has posted on Twitter, such as “…urging protesters to overthrow the

Iranian government, threatening to blow up North Korea and calling for cuts in aid to the

Palestinians.”171 The article continues:

Countries are unsure whether to take his words as policy pronouncements, or whether they can be safely ignored. If Mr. Trump’s threats are seen as hollow, what does that do to American credibility? In a series of Twitter posts on Saturday, Mr. Trump reacted to questions about his mental fitness by calling himself a ‘very stable genius.’… Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, recently repeated some of Mr. Trump’s more belligerent tweets and said: ‘This is our commander in chief. Think about it.’ The words of the American president matter, he added in a Twitter message: “That is why so many of this president’s tweets alarm. The issue is not just questionable policy on occasion but questionable judgment and discipline.172

168 The New York Times editorial board, “Truth and Lies in the Age of Trump,” New York Times, December 10, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/10/opinion/truth-and-lies-in-the-age-of- trump.html?searchResultPosition=1. 169 Charlie Savage, “Twitter Users Blocked by Trump File Lawsuit,” New York Times, July 11 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/us/politics/trump-twitter-users-lawsuit.html 170 Charlie Savage, “Trump Can’t Block Critics From His Twitter Account, Appeals Court Rules,” New York Times, July 9, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/us/politics/trump-twitter-first-amendment.html. The court ended up ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, deeming it illegal for Trump to block users on Twitter. 171 Steven Erlanger, “Trump’s Twitter Threats Put American Credibility on the Line,” New York Times, January 7, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/07/world/europe/trump-tweets-american-credibility.html 172 Steven Erlanger, “Trump’s Twitter Threats Put American Credibility on the Line.”

70 The American political landscape has been altered for a plethora of reasons under Trump.

The manner in which he communicates with the leaders of other countries is unprecedented because of both the tone and the medium.

Educational efforts

The Times published a variety of curriculum guidelines and other such solutions-focused stories during the period of analysis. Curriculum guidelines are intended for high schoolers and educators. These guidelines ranged from media literacy to understanding electoral politics. An article focused on the latter offered a list of ways for students to better understand and engage with politics during the 2018 midterm elections, such as “create a get-out-the-youth-vote campaign” and “hold a mock election.”173

Publishing stories and educational guidelines is meant to empower young people to educate themselves about politics and partake in the political process in the future. The Times has also increased educational efforts for the general public. The article “Alt-Right, Alt-Left, Antifa:

A Glossary of Extremist Language,” published on August 15, 2017, breaks down terminology that became buzzwords after the Charlottesville riots. After Trump claimed that the actions of

“the alt-left” at that riot placed “blame on both sides.”174 The article subsequently shows the alt- left does not, in fact, exist: Quoting Mark Pitcavage, an analyst at the Anti-Defamation League, who “…said the word had been made up to create a false equivalence between the far right and

‘anything vaguely left-seeming that they didn’t like.’”175 As rhetoric about the “alt-right” and

173 Michael Gonchar and Natalie Proulx, “Seven Ways to Teach the Midterms With The New York Times,” New York Times, October 4, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/learning/lesson-plans/seven-ways-to-teach-the- midterms-with-the-new-york-times.html 174 Liam Stack, “Alt-Right, Alt-Left, Antifa: A Glossary of Extremist Language,” New York Times, August 15, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/alt-left-alt-right-glossary.html 175 Ibid.

71 “alt-left” swirled throughout the country from various players, it is essential that reporters from the Times took the initiative of clarifying this terminology for readers in order to combat misinformation.

The impact of racism, white supremacy, and xenophobia

Trump’s brazen rhetoric – often weaponized against minorities – has emboldened white nationalists and inspired acts of violence committed by white supremacists. This was notably seen at the Charlottesville riots in August 2017. The events, known as the “Unite the Right” rally, spanned two days. It began with a group of men carrying tiki torches and marching toward a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. They spouted epithets such as “Jews will not replace us!” The next day, violence ensued: A counter-protester, Heather Heyer, was murdered when a white supremacist drove his car through a crowd.176 White supremacists often cite Trump as an inspiring figure. David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, was quoted saying at the rally: “We are determined to take our country back,” Duke said from the rally, calling it a “turning point.” “We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back.”177

The Times published an article, “New Outcry as Trump Rebukes Charlottesville Racists 2

Days Later,” on August 14, 2017. After Trump made his comment about “very fine people on both sides,” he tweeted: “Made additional remarks on Charlottesville and realize once again that

176 “What Charlottesville Changed,” Politico, August 12, 2018, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/12/charlottesville-anniversary-supremacists-protests-dc-virginia- 219353 177 Libby Nelson, “Why we voted for Donald Trump”: David Duke explains the white supremacist Charlottesville protests,” Vox, August 12, 2017, https://www.vox.com/2017/8/12/16138358/charlottesville-protests-david-duke-kkk

72 the #Fake News Media will never be satisfied...truly bad people!”178 Subsequent articles about

Trump, white nationalism, and his tendency to rebuke unfavorable coverage as “fake news” abounded after Charlottesville. The rhetoric Trump used against journalists after the Unite the

Right rally drew criticism from Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations human rights chief, who warned that the Trump spoke about journalists could incite violence:

In an attempt to deflect criticism that he had stoked racial divisions by failing to unequivocally condemn the actions of neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville as racist, Mr. Trump had accused the news media of giving a platform to hate groups. He singled out by name The New York Times, CNN and The Washington Post. 179

This ties back to the legality of such speech per Brandenburg v. Ohio and determining if such speech is “directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and if it is “likely to incite or produce such action.”180

The Times also reported on how white nationalists are radicalized through social media platforms. The article “The Alt-Right Created a Parallel Internet. It’s an Unholy Mess” profiles white supremacists and the alternative news platforms they have created to spread their ideals.

The article, published on December 11, 2017, features a photo of a white supremacist and creator of the crowdfunding site Hatreon. He is posed at his desk, looking like an average millennial web developer.181 This is problematic, however, because it normalizes the behavior and existence of white supremacists by making them look like any average thirty-something.

Less than a year later, this coverage evolved into how those radicalized by such sites commit acts of violence – such as the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. White

178 Glenn Thrush, New Outcry as Trump Rebukes Charlottesville Racists 2 Days Later, New York Times, August 14, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/us/politics/trump-charlottesville-protest.html 179Nick Cumming-Bruce, “U.N. Human Rights Chief Condemns Trump’s Attacks on Media,” New York Times, August 30, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/world/europe/trump-press-united-nations.html 180 “Brandenburg v. Ohio.” Oyez. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1968/492. 181 Kevin Roose, “The Alt-Right Created a Parallel Internet. It’s an Unholy Mess,” New York Times, December 11, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/11/technology/alt-right-internet.html

73 supremacists are no longer treated as an abstraction or an anomaly, nor are their photos taken in their homes. They are now portrayed as people capable of murder, informed by white supremacist ideology. The article “Reeling From Tragedy, Many in Pittsburgh Say Trump

Should Not Visit,” featured quotes from leaders in the Pittsburgh Jewish community who accused Trump of “stirring up extremism”:

Steve Gelernter, a Republican who lives in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, the backbone of the city’s Jewish population and where Tree of Life is a mainstay, said he was furious that Mr. Trump had not distanced himself enough from views espoused by white nationalists. “He is giving a platform for the closet racists to come out and have a voice,” Mr. Gelernter said. “You never saw any leader speak this way and the country become so polarized.”182

Additionally, the article entitled “Trump Shares Inflammatory Anti-Muslim Videos, and

Britain’s Leader Condemns Them” illustrates Trump’s pattern of circulating bigoted and hateful material via social media. In late November 2017, Trump retweeted a series of videos entitled

“Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!” “Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!” and “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!”183 The Times reported that there is no evidence that these videos depict what they claim too. The reporters also described this instance as “racially charged.”184 However, it is essential that reporters use their platform to call the rhetoric what it is: The videos are simply racist.

182 Trip Gabriel, “Reeling From Tragedy, Many in Pittsburgh Say Trump Should Not Visit,” The New York Times, October 29, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/29/us/politics/pittsburgh-synagogue-trump.html 183 Peter Baker and Eileen Sullivan, “Trump Shares Inflammatory Anti-Muslim Videos, and Britain’s Leader Condemns Them,” The New York Times, November 29, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/us/politics/trump-anti-muslim-videos-jayda-fransen.html 184 Peter Baker and Eileen Sullivan, “Trump Shares Inflammatory Anti-Muslim Videos, and Britain’s Leader Condemns Them.”

74 Rise of right-wing populism

As detailed earlier in this study, Trump is not the only world leader who delegitimizes the mainstream media with “fake news” rhetoric. As xenophobia, racism, and anti-Muslim bigotry sweep the globe, many leaders capitalize on constituents’ fears regarding security, the job market, and the economy through tactics of right-wing populism. Trump and other global leaders demonstrate such tendencies, and the Times reports on this matter unflinchingly.

In the article “Trump Meets India’s Leader, a Fellow Nationalist Battling China for His

Favor,” President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India are described as “two nationalist leaders with a shared passion for social media.” The article continues: “Mr. Trump lavished praise on Mr. Modi, calling him a ‘true friend’ with ambitious plans to fight corruption and cut taxes. The two men also share a devotion to Twitter and Facebook to bypass the news media and reach their publics directly.”185

The shared tendencies of these leaders, both ideologically and in their actions, are clearly spelled out to readers. This helps the general public understand that when these leaders rise to power, it is not a fluke or otherwise due to isolated causes. Similarly, it is shown that these tendencies, such as bypassing the media are symptomatic of nationalism. Although it is not identified in the above quote, both Trump and Modi employ anti-Muslim rhetoric and other such nationalistic leanings.

This isn’t to say that politicians across the political spectrum do not utilize social media to amplify their messages. In this case, it is emblematic of right-wing nationalism when the

185 Mark Landler and Gardiner Harris, “Trump Meets India’s Leader, a Fellow Nationalist Battling China for His Favor,” New York Times, June 26, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/us/politics/donald-trump-narendra- modi-india.html xxx

75 media is both systemically delegitimized as fake and not trustworthy and then subverted through alternative channels.

As discussed previously in this study, media distrust and delegitimization has become an emblematic tactic used by nationalist, right-leaning world leaders. The article “As Kenya’s Vote

Nears, Fear That ‘Fake News’ May Fuel Real Bloodshed,” published on August 6, 2017, recounts a tale now familiar to many Americans:

Fake news. Odd plot twists. Tit-for-tat accusations. One candidate calling another “crooked.” Those political phenomena, familiar to voters in the United States and Europe, have surfaced in Kenya ahead of a tightly contested presidential election on Tuesday. But in a country with a history of election violence, the addition of such toxic behavior has further fanned fears about whether the country can pull off a credible and peaceful vote…Misleading reports combined with a shaky trust in the electoral process — a third of Kenyans have “no trust at all” in the fairness of the electoral commission, according to a nationwide opinion poll — could set off a rerun of the violence seen a decade ago.186

Additionally, rhetoric and actions commonly used by Trump are also exhibited by other right-wing populists. For instance, the recently elected President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro:

But much like President Trump and populist leaders around the world, Mr. Bolsonaro has tapped into a deep well of resentment at the political establishment. He channeled Brazilians’ anger over staggering levels of corruption and crime, presenting himself as the only candidate tough enough to solve them. ‘Brazilians want a hero,’ said Daniel Machado, a professor of political marketing, referring to Mr. Bolsonaro’s vow to take radical measures to fix Brazil. Millions of voters see his inflammatory positions — he has called women ignorant, told a female lawmaker she was too ugly to rape and questioned why women should earn the same salary as men — as straight talk from a man who is not afraid to say, and do, what is needed.187

By reporting on Bolsonaro’s rhetoric, the Times is implicitly asking its American audience: Sound familiar? Some Americans – especially those who live in urban areas or

186 Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, “As Kenya’s Vote Nears, Fear That ‘Fake News’ May Fuel Real Bloodshed,” New York Times, August 6, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/06/world/africa/kenya-election-kenyatta- odinga.html?searchResultPosition=1 187 Ernesto Londoño and Shasta Darlington, “Far-Right Candidate Jair Bolsonaro Widens Lead in Brazil’s Presidential Race,” New York Times, October 8, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/05/world/americas/brazil- presidential-race-bolsonaro.html.

76 identify as liberal – were shocked by Trump’s election in 2016 and found his brazen way of speaking and overt racism to be shocking. By overly drawing parallels between leaders similar to

Trump, both in ideology and in tactic, Times reporters are showing that this is not unique, and symptomatic of large issues.

Conspiracy theories

The Trump presidency and preceding time period has been marked by a variety of conspiracy theories: “Pizzagate,” the migrant caravan, voter fraud, the “birther” conspiracy that claims Obama was not born in the United States, and the motives and ownership of the media, all of which will be detailed in this section. Trump has pedaled these conspiracy theories directly to the public through his Twitter, as have his supporters.

“On Twitter, a Battle Among Political Bots,” published on December 14, 2016, delves into the phenomenon of bot-generated conspiracy theories and falsified news articles:

Propaganda bots made a powerful showing during Election 2016. Oxford University’s Project on Computational Propaganda found that at times during the campaign, more than a quarter of the tweets colonizing politicized hashtags like #MAGA and #CrookedHillary came from ‘heavily automated accounts.’ In the days leading up to the election, Trump propaganda bots outnumbered Clinton propaganda bots five to one. Since then, bot armies have been programmed to spread conspiracy theories about a made-up Democratic pedophile ring known as Pizzagate. The bots help the topic trend, lend an air of grass-roots momentum and create enough of a mirage of a movement that real people then join in.188

In addition to deeming unfavorable coverage “fake news,” Trump has worked to cast signs of failure in his presidency as conspiracy theories:

President Trump, confronting perhaps the most ominous economic signs of his time in office, has unleashed what is by now a familiar response: lashing out at what he believes is a conspiracy of forces arrayed against him. He has insisted that his own handpicked Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, is intentionally acting against him. He has said other countries, including allies, are working to hurt American economic interests. And

188 Amanda Hess, On Twitter, a Battle Among Political Bots, New York Times, December 14, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/arts/on-twitter-a-battle-among-political-bots.html?searchResultPosition=1.

77 he has accused the news media of trying to create a recession. “The Fake News Media is doing everything they can to crash the economy because they think that will be bad for me and my re-election,” Mr. Trump tweeted last week. “The problem they have is that the economy is way too strong and we will soon be winning big on Trade, and everyone knows that, including China!” 189

Another favorite conspiracy theory of Trump’s was the “birther” conspiracy that

President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. When he admitted to its fabrication, he crafted a new conspiracy:

Donald J. Trump publicly retreated from his ‘birther’ campaign on Friday, tersely acknowledging that President Obama was born in the United States — and effectively conceding that the conspiracy theory he had promoted for years was baseless. Mr. Trump made no apology for and took no questions about what had amounted to a five-year-long smear of the nation’s first black president. Instead, he claimed, falsely, that questions about Mr. Obama’s citizenship were initially stirred by the Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, in her unsuccessful primary contest against Mr. Obama in 2008.190

By mainstreaming these conspiracies both online and in speeches, Trump has legitimized many baseless conspiracy theories and also radicalized those whose conspiracies used to be relegated to obscure Reddit threads.

The Times also reported extensively on Trump’s conspiratorial attitude towards voting – particularly, his belief that there is wide-spread voter fraud in the United States, and that is why he did not win the popular vote in 2016. Héctor Tobar’s opinion piece, “We Pity You, President

Trump,” showcases this tendency in Trump’s rhetoric:

The commander in chief believes we stole true victory from him. Somehow, on Nov. 8, we convinced several million of our undocumented brothers and sisters to abandon their work in fields, factories and family residences, leaving crops untended and babies crying — just so they could cast the votes denying Donald J. Trump the glory of a popular vote plurality over Hillary Clinton. Many different people have pointed out the absurdity of the president’s latest beef with Latino immigrants and his obsession with voter fraud in

189 Maggie Haberman, “In Economic Warning Signals, Trump Sees Signs of a Conspiracy, New York Times, August 18, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/18/us/politics/trump-economy-recession.html. 190 Maggie Haberman and Alan Rappeport, Trump Drops False ‘Birther’ Theory, but Floats a New One: Clinton Started It, New York Times, September 16, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/politics/donald-trump- birther-obama.html.

78 general. My favorite is the study concluding that more people are hit by lightning in this country each year than are illegally impersonated in the voting booth.191

Tobar goes on to explain that Trump’s obsession with illegal voting is meant to further cast Latino immigrants as others, or as invaders. Tobar writes that this rhetoric is meant to justify the construction of the border wall and other anti-immigration policies.

Rally coverage and taunts

During the three-year period of analysis, the Times covered the actions and rhetoric of

Trump and his supporters at his rallies. These actions and rhetoric were often violent and threatening, most notably towards the press and minority communities.

The crowd at a Trump rally in Tampa, Florida was described as exceptionally aggressive, especially in their attitude towards the mainstream media:

The baby wearing a ‘CNN Sucks!’ pin pretty much summed it up. In the back of a fairground auditorium in Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday night, as President Trump presided over a rally dedicated to denigrating his enemies, the journalists dispatched to cover the proceedings attracted their own raucous crowd. ‘Stop lying!’ shouted a man in an American flag T-shirt, one of dozens of Trump supporters who hurled invective at the assembled press corps. Facing the reporters’ work space — and away from the stage where Mr. Trump was set to speak — they flashed middle fingers and chanted ‘CNN Sucks!’ as Jim Acosta, a CNN White House correspondent, attempted to speak on-air. Menacing the media was a theme of Mr. Trump’s campaign rallies in 2016. News networks hired security guards for some correspondents — a practice that, in Mr. Acosta’s case, has continued — and reporters found themselves taunted and disparaged by attendees repeating Mr. Trump’s refrain of “fake news.”192

The article continues:

In Tampa, though, several journalists described an atmosphere of hostility that felt particularly hard-edge. And far from condemning these attacks on the press, the president and his team have endorsed them. That night, Mr. Trump tweeted out a video of his

191 Héctor Tobar, “We Pity You, President Trump,” New York Times, February 13, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/opinion/latino-americans-pity-you-president-trump.html.

192 Michael M. Grynbaum, “Crowds, Stoked by Trump’s Rhetoric, Increase Their Ire Toward the Press,” New York Times, August 1, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/01/business/media/trump-press-jim-acosta.html.

79 supporters jeering Mr. Acosta, along with an approving comment from his son Eric: “#truth.” When the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was invited at Wednesday’s press briefing to condemn the menacing behavior, she declined. “While we certainly support freedom of the press,” Ms. Sanders said, “we also support freedom of speech. And we think that those things go hand in hand.”193

These details exemplify the mainstreamed dislike and distrust of the press that has become a hallmark of Trump’s presidency. Additionally, the word choice used by the reporter,

Michael M. Grynbaum, exemplifies how seriously those in the mainstream media take the actions of Trump and his supporters: invective, disparaged, hostility, attacks, menacing.

The next day, the Times reported on a Trump rally in Pennsylvania. Even though the rally was meant to campaign for Representative Lou Barletta, Trump focused the majority of his speech on his hatred of the “fake, fake disgusting news media:”

It underscored yet another day of tensions between the White House and the news media. During an afternoon news briefing, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the president’s press secretary, pointedly blamed the news media for that tension. And while en route to Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump sought to play down comments from Ivanka Trump, his elder daughter and senior adviser, that explicitly disagreed with his description of journalists as “the enemy of the people.” During the rally, supporters gleefully booed at every dig at the so-called fake news, laughing and jeering as Mr. Trump recalled conversations with his wife, Melania, about anticipating positive coverage, only to be disappointed by what he deemed to be critical headlines. “They can make anything bad because they are the fake, fake disgusting news,” the president said. And he was prepared to list his grievances. He interrupted a 10-minute recollection of his 2016 election night victory to complain that the news networks had intentionally delayed results, claiming that Pennsylvania had been deprived of its chance to take credit for clinching his Electoral College victory. He found fault with the coverage of his meeting with Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, after which Mr. Trump claimed that the North had ceased nuclear testing and had finally returned the remains of American soldiers killed during the Korean War — all thanks to his diplomacy, he said. (Despite his assurances, the country has continued testing, and it is unclear if and how the remains were properly identified.) He mocked criticism of his passive demeanor in his meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Helsinki, Finland, telling the crowd that a good relationship with the Russian president was to be celebrated. (“That’s a good thing folks, not a bad thing,” he said to applause.) He dismissed concerns that he had antagonized allies during a gathering of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, arguing that, regardless of any tense discussions about funding and tariffs, “I have a better relationship with every one of them than any other president.” And he insisted that the statistics detailing the positive effect of his

193 Ibid.

80 administration’s policies — including the tax overhaul and employment numbers — had been grossly misrepresented or neglected altogether. “Whatever happened to fair press?” he asked. “Whatever happened to honest reporting?”194

The above quote, while long, is integral to understanding the depth of Trump’s opposition to the mainstream media, and his sensitivity to criticism of his presidency generally.

The “fake news” media is seen as opposition to the masses whom Trump claims to represent. He also casts himself as a victim of the mainstream media’s undue scorn. He harkens for a better time: “Whatever happened to a fair press?” This occurs in a manner not dissimilar from “Make

America Great Again” – a supposedly lost time Trump makes out to have been robbed from white America.

Changing media landscape

Traditional media, such as radio and print journalism, has been greatly impacted by the rise of social media. Without advertising revenue, and with subscriptions dropping, media outlets have executed mass layoffs and consolidated in order to save money.

This shift in the media landscape has played to the tune of Trump’s benefit. Social media subverts the mainstream media, and traditional journalism outlets are often not well-funded enough to maintain a full staff to generate in-depth quality content.

The article “Never Mind the News Media: Politicians Test Direct-to-Voter Messaging,” published by the Times on May 31, 2018, covers the newfound phenomenon of politicians communicating directly with constituents. These efforts – such as podcasting, websites, social media, and live streams – effectively “bypass the traditional media gatekeepers”:

These media methods have obvious appeal: Politicians can appear accessible but remain insulated from the press. They are also not altogether new. President Trump eschewed

194 Emily Cochrane, “Trump Bashes ‘Fake News’: ‘They Can Make Anything Bad,’” New York Times, August 2, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/us/politics/trump-rally-pennsylvania.html

81 traditional television advertising during the 2016 campaign and can now overshadow even his own party’s message at the drop of a tweet. And many politicians have long made a practice of ducking reporters…Yet several factors have converged to elevate the practice: Fake news and false information about politics have proliferated; the public’s trust in the mainstream media is low; and social media platforms make unfiltered messaging easier than ever. As a result, there is a new urgency among politicians to deliver talking points directly. Some two-thirds of Americans get at least some of their news on social media, according to a recent Pew Research Center report…“Politicians have always wanted to control the message — they’ve always wanted to dominate the talk,” [Al Cross, journalism professor at University of Kentucky] said. “In a media environment where you have all kinds of platforms on which to play — only a few of which you have to submit yourself to questions by reporter — then sure, you’re going to use those platforms.”195

While these methods have proven to be an effective tool for politicians – most notably,

Trump – news outlets have also benefitted from the verbal attacks and delegitimization that comes from the commander in chief’s Twitter account. The article “By Attacking the Press,

Donald Trump May Be Doing It a Favor” reports that since the 2016 election, more people have subscribed to the Times and many other mainstream news publications:

It’s as if Mr. Trump’s media attacks have combined with the heightened attention on the perils of fake news to create one big fat advertisement for the value of basic journalism. “The fake news business is going to be great for journalism in the long run,” Mr. Carter told me Friday, referring to Mr. Trump as “the Fake Newser in Chief.” “Proper news organizations should thrive under this.”… As the country and the world head into this confusing new era, news organizations are in a position to make a newly urgent pitch: Buying a subscription is tantamount to supporting the pillars of democracy. It’s about maintaining the sort of reporting that debunks fake news, holds power accountable and keeps the nation on course in its own imperfect way.196

The boost in subscriptions directly correlated to Trump’s election has resulted in the

Times giving their readers what they want: Unprecedented coverage and commentary on the 45th president. Some have been critical of the Times and other mainstream media outlets for this

195 Sydney Ember, “Never Mind the News Media: Politicians Test Direct-to-Voter Messaging,” New York Times, May 31, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/us/politics/bernie-sanders-town-hall.html. 196 Jim Rutenberg, “By Attacking the Press, Donald Trump May Be Doing It a Favor,” New York Times, December 18, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/18/business/media/by-attacking-the-press-donald-trump-may-be- doing-it-a-favor.html.

82 approach, as they have given Trump and his antagonistic rhetoric more attention and airtime when it is undue, especially when that rhetoric is peppered with lies.

Entertainment and the arts: Trump’s impact on pop culture

The Times reports on Trump’s impact on film, television, the arts, and popular culture generally. From comedy shows already known for its political commentary like The Colbert

Report to opera, Trump has been leaving his mark on the realm of pop culture.

In a recap of late-night TV highlights from 2017, Giovanni Russonello writes for the

Times:

In the first year of President Trump’s administration, the role of late-night TV comedians has changed dramatically — perhaps permanently. It’s almost impossible to watch even five minutes of a show nowadays without some mention of politics. Since February, I’ve written “Best of Late Night,” a daily column highlighting standout moments from the weeknight talk shows. In a year defined by Mr. Trump’s unorthodox presidency, each host has seemed to build a personal approach to handling him.197

The Times also noted that late-night hosts – some already political, some not – have changed their approach and content since the 2016 election:

On “The Late Show,” Stephen Colbert, no stranger to political satire, has tended to focus on the Russia scandal, even taping a week of shows in Russia last summer. Jimmy Kimmel, once a rather apolitical figure, cloaked himself in activist garb, pushing for — and against — legislation in a way that forebears like Johnny Carson and Jay Leno wouldn’t have imagined. Even Jimmy Fallon, whose stage persona remains sunny and easygoing, often takes on politics, mostly by emphasizing the silliness — not the severity — of what unfolds in Washington.198

197 Giovanni Russonello, “Late-Night TV Highlights in 2017: Trump, Russia, Weinstein and More,” New York Times, December 27, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/arts/television/late-night-tv-in-2017-trump-russia- weinstein-and-more.html. 198 Giovanni Russonello, “Late-Night TV Highlights in 2017: Trump, Russia, Weinstein and More.”

83 An adaptation of the 1976 movie “Network” for the stage is also framed in context of the

Trump presidency – particularly, his disdain for the media:

The creators and performers of this stage version, set in the late 1970s of the film, believe they have found a compelling interpretation that they can make every bit as relevant to a contemporary audience. Its story is not one that required any updating to resonate in the Trump era of alternative facts and fake news, but the play does not go out of its way to draw these parallels, either. Beyond its eerily accurate forecasting about the corporatization of news media and the degradation of truth, this “Network” has a timely and more fundamental message about the power of anger and what happens when society unleashes it en masse.

The arts often offer overt or subtle commentary on the current state of affairs, and the

Trump presidency has been no exception. As noted by Russonello in the late-night TV highlights article quoted above, there is rarely an episode of late-night TV that doesn’t venture into politics.

When the political landscape becomes so shocking and unbelievable to some, its influence pervades many aspects of life, including the arts.

Prior to becoming president, Trump was a real estate mogul as well as an entertainer and reality TV show host. This could contribute in some capacity to Trump’s concern with the ratings of press conferences and the size of his crowds. On Twitter, he often “bragged about crowd size and applause.”199

199Shear, Haberman, Confessore, Yourish, Buchanan and Collins, “How Trump Reshaped the Presidency in Over 11,000 Tweets.”

84 Fact-checking and commitment to transparency

To combat the surplus of falsehoods circulated by Trump and others, as well as systemically disseminated false information via social media, the Times has shown a commitment to fact-checking and increasing transparency. In this sense, the Times serves as a resource for citizens to fact-check such statements.

The Times has created sections such as “Trump’s First 100 Days” and “The Trump White

House,” showing that no other president and their statements have been so thoroughly examined.

This tendency is exemplified by the article “Fact-Checking President Trump Through His First

100 Days.” The article displays exact quotes of Trump’s, organized by date, and then dissects the falsity of his claims. The Times also provides hyperlinks to various interviews, other news articles (both on the Times website and through other news organizations), and to fact-checking organizations like PolitiFact. For instance, the tweet “When I do, just like with the F-35

FighterJet [sic] or the Air Force One Program, price will come WAY DOWN!” is just one of many statements that is fact-checked:

Mr. Trump promised his negotiating skills would help drive down the cost of a wall at the Mexican border, citing his role in shaving $728 million off the cost of F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin. Mr. Trump may have sped up the process, but costs were decreasing before he got involved. The Air Force projected about $600 million in savings on Dec. 19, two days before Mr. Trump met with Lockheed’s chief executive.200

This particular claim is refuted with factual support and hyperlinks to articles from the

Times and Business Insider.

The Times does not just do its fact checking in hindsight; reporters are vigilant as they verify circulating stories in real time. The story “Kellyanne Conway Admits ‘Bowling Green

Massacre’ Error,” clarifies a quickly-circulating lie about the “Bowling Green Massacre”:

200 Linda Qiu, “Fact-Checking President Trump Through His First 100 Days,” New York Times, April 29, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/29/us/politics/fact-checking-president-trump-through-his-first-100-days.html.

85 Kellyanne Conway, the adviser to President Trump who coined the phrase “alternative facts,” is facing another round of criticism and fact-checking after she falsely spoke of a “Bowling Green massacre” by Iraqi refugees. She acknowledged and corrected her statement Friday morning on Twitter. Ms. Conway made the comment during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Hardball” on Thursday night as she discussed with the host, Chris Matthews, the executive order by Mr. Trump that suspended immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. “I bet it’s brand new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalized and were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre,” she said. “Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered.”201

In an attempt to delegitimize the mainstream press and construe its supposed anti-Trump and pro-terror leanings, Conway actually hands a win to the legitimacy of the press because there was no massacre – she appeared to have made it up. The Times solidifies this small victory with thorough fact-checking and interviews with former Obama administrators.

Rhetoric used in op-eds

The tone and terminology used by Times opinion writers when covering Trump is often deeply critical. This tendency is largely unwavering over the three-year period.

In the op-ed “Lies in the Guise of News in the Trump Era,” published shortly after the

2016 election, the author utilizes satire to illustrate the absurdity of the rampant media delegitimization before diving into his main point:

If you get your news from this newspaper or our rival mainstream news sources, there’s probably a lot you don’t know. You may not realize that our Kenyan-born Muslim president was plotting to serve a third term as our illegitimate president, by allowing Hillary Clinton to win and then indicting her; Pope Francis’ endorsement of Donald Trump helped avert the election-rigging. You perhaps didn’t know that Clinton is a Satan worshiper at the center of “an international child enslavement and sex ring.” Or that Chelsea Clinton isn’t Bill Clinton’s daughter, but a love child of Hillary’s by another man — or that Bill has his own love child with a black prostitute. Oh, the scoops we miss here at The Times! None of those items is actually true, of course, but all have been reported by alt-right or fake news websites (the line between them is sometimes blurred). And one

201 Joe Coscarelli, “Kellyanne Conway Admits ‘Bowling Green Massacre’ Error,” New York Times, February 3, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/us/politics/bowling-green-massacre-kellyanne-conway.html.

86 takeaway from this astonishing presidential election is that fake news is gaining ground, empowering nuts and undermining our democracy.202 The author utilizes humor to draw attention to the absurdity of the freely circulating falsehoods that Trump and his supporters have propagated. The writer’s tone is a bit incredulous as he draws attention to how, frankly, ridiculous such conspiracy theories are.

Editorials have also given Times journalists and other commentators the space to fully articulate their grievances with Trump and the rampant delegitimization of the media that he, his cabinet, and his supporters so often employ. The article “The True Damage of Trump’s ‘Fake

News’”, published by the Times’ editorial board on April 4, 2018, unpacks Trump’s tactic of delegitimizing the media, and the effect of such rhetoric on the mainstream media as well as when this tendency is used elsewhere:

Many people, including many Republican lawmakers, dismiss President Trump’s attacks on The Washington Post, CNN and other news organizations as just one of those crazy — but ultimately harmless — things he does to blow off steam. They’re wrong. Yes, Mr. Trump hasn’t been able to implement many of his worst proposals to undermine the press. Congress hasn’t tried to change the First Amendment or pass new libel laws, for example, and journalists — including at the “failing New York Times” — regularly unearth new scandals in the Trump administration. But the president’s rhetoric is clearly having an effect in the United States and especially around the world, where political leaders have seen it as a green light to crack down on the press. Malaysian lawmakers this week passed a law that would impose prison sentences of up to six years on people found to be spreading “fake news,” an ill-defined term that will put tremendous power in the hands of government officials to punish journalists and publishers. In India, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed revoking the accreditation of journalists who traffic in “fake news” before scrapping the idea after journalists denounced it…When the president calls every piece of information he does not like “fake news,” he also encourages politicians in other countries who are not constrained by constitutional free speech protections or independent judiciaries to more aggressively squelch the press. They know that there will be little international condemnation of their actions because one of the most important standard bearers for a free press — the American government — is led by a man trying to discredit the free press…Mr. Trump is unlikely to change his ways, and his most loyal supporters will support him no matter

202 Nicholas Kristof, “Lies in the Guise of News in the Trump Era,” New York Times, November 12, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/opinion/sunday/lies-in-the-guise-of-news-in-the-trump-era.html.

87 what he does. It is up to everybody else, Republicans and Democrats alike, to stand up and speak out against his destructive attacks on the press and the truth.203

In the above section, the editorial board is able to expand on the dangers of “fake news” rhetoric in a blatant, straightforward manner that reporters cannot engage in in traditional news stories. For instance, a reporter would not be able to make the assertion “They’re wrong” as the editorial board did above.

International affairs

The unprecedented manner in which Trump interacts with other world leaders was reported on considerably during the three-year period of analysis. From inflammatory tweets exchanged with the leaders of Iran and North Korea, to threatening to pull out of well-established international agreements, such as NAFTA and NATO.

The Times reports on how these shifting dynamics have manifested:

As President Trump prepared to leave the NATO summit meeting in his disgruntled wake, the story of his visit could be told in the tight smiles, stiff handshakes and averted gazes he exchanged with the people who are supposed to be some of his closest European allies. With few leaders willing to publicly push back against Mr. Trump’s aggressive haggling over military spending, observers were left to study his body language, as well as that of his allies and aides. At times, attempts to decipher the mood of the president and other heads of state felt akin to studying a very sophisticated and multilingual high school cafeteria. For starters, there appeared to be cliques, with a grimacing Mr. Trump often on the outs. As leaders prepared for a so-called (and perhaps dysfunctional) family photo, Mr. Trump’s contemporaries walked ahead and chatted together while the president hung back with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president. During a group photo shoot, leaders seemed to glance at Mr. Trump out of the corners of their eyes, if they looked at him at all. The coverage of the icy-appearing exchanges caught the attention of at least two high-profile White House aides, who were quick to declare the analysis ‘fake news.’ ‘Fake News Media outlets FAIL to mention the photo of President @realDonaldTrump looking up toward the sky with others,” Dan Scavino, the president’s social media director, wrote on Twitter, “is that of an impressive flyover of helicopters

203 The New York Times editorial board, “The True Damage of Trump’s ‘Fake News,’” New York Times, April 4, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/opinion/trump-washington-post-amazon.html.

88 from 13 Alied [sic] Nations as seen here off the reflection of the @NATO building. Way to go FAKE NEWS!”204

The above quote masterfully illustrates the tense dynamic between Trump and other world leaders with strong imagery and word choice. These observations shed light on the changing dynamics between other world leaders and Trump, and consequently show that Trump is not particularly liked and respected by other members of NATO, save for the Turkish president, an anti-democratic strongman in his own right.

While he may be icily received by other world leaders in NATO, Trump is both popular with and emulated by populist or authoritarian leaders across the globe. Trump’s rhetoric – especially towards the press – has inspired leaders in other countries:

When Amnesty International released a report about prison deaths in Syria, the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, retorted that “we are living in a fake-news era.” President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, who is steadily rolling back democracy in his country, blamed the global media for “lots of false versions, lots of lies,” saying “this is what we call ‘fake news’ today.” In Myanmar, where international observers accuse the military of conducting a genocidal campaign against the Rohingya Muslims, a security official told The New York Times that “there is no such thing as Rohingya,” adding: “It is fake news.” In Russia, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, told a CNN reporter to “stop spreading lies and fake news.” Her ministry now uses a big red stamp, “FAKE,” on its website to label news stories it dislikes.205

The title of this article, ““Fake News,” Trump’s Obsession, Is Now a Cudgel for

Strongmen,” immediately shows the reader that “fake news” is being wielded as a political weapon across the globe. The article shows that “fake news” rhetoric is indeed a cudgel – a stick used as a weapon – used to erode democracy by giving the examples of other world leaders deeming any criticism of their regimes “fake news.”

204 Katie Rogers, “Trump’s NATO Visit Marked by Stiff Handshakes and Uncomfortable ‘Family Photos,’” New York Times, July 12, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/world/europe/trump-nato-body-language.html. 205 Steven Erlanger, “‘Fake News,’” Trump’s Obsession, Is Now a Cudgel for Strongmen,” New York Times, December 12, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/world/europe/trump-fake-news-dictators.html.

89 An article published in March 2017, “China’s Response to Reports of Torture: ‘Fake

News,’” included hyperlinks to tweets from Chinese news sources, claiming that “Foreign media reports that police tortured a detained lawyer is FAKE NEWS, fabricated to tarnish China's image” and “Investigations reveal "torture stories" about Chinese lawyer Xie Yang are nothing but cleverly orchestrated lies.”206 The Times describes the use of the term “fake news” as

“Trumpian.”207 The trend of world leaders committing wrongdoings against their citizens and labeling any criticism as “fake news” is concerning, yet it is becoming increasingly commonplace. It also portrays “fake news” as a legacy of Trump.

Similarly, the Times reports on how governments, both in the United States and abroad, try to tackle the spread of “fake news” through the law. The article “As Malaysia Moves to Ban

‘Fake News,’ Worries About Who Decides the Truth,” examines this occurrence:

The legislation would punish not only those who are behind fake news but also anyone who maliciously spreads such material. Online service providers would be responsible for third-party content, and anyone could lodge a complaint. As long as Malaysia or Malaysians are affected, fake news generated outside the country is also subject to prosecution. What qualifies as fake news, however, is ill defined. Ultimately, the government would be given broad latitude to decide what constitutes fact in Malaysia…But members of Malaysia’s political opposition say the legislation is intended to stifle free speech ahead of elections that are widely seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Najib Razak, who has been tainted by a scandal involving billions of dollars that were diverted from Malaysia’s state investment fund.208

Thus, it is difficult to deal with the spread of false information on a legal level without very narrow criteria, as it could be used to suppress speech that is critical of the government.

206 Javier C. Hernández, “China’s Response to Reports of Torture: ‘Fake News,’” New York Times, March 3, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/world/asia/china-fake-news-xie.html. 207 Ibid. 208 Hannah Beech, “As Malaysia Moves to Ban ‘Fake News,’ Worries About Who Decides the Truth”, New York Times, April 2, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/world/asia/malaysia-fake-news- law.html?searchResultPosition=1.

90 Treatment of journalists in the United States and abroad

The Times reports extensively on the increased aggression towards journalists, both domestically and across the globe. When reporting on Trump’s attitude towards the press, Times reporters often use terminology such as “attack” and “war.” This is evident in headlines such as

“By Attacking the Press, Donald Trump May Be Doing It a Favor,” a story published on

December 18, 2016, as well as in stories like “Trump, a New Style of Fighter, Takes the Ring,” published on January 11, 2017, offers boxing imagery and similarly portrays Trump as aggressive in his attitude towards the mainstream media and any other entities he perceives as being positioned against him. This could be an allusion to the video of Trump’s face superimposed on a WWE wrestler, slamming CNN.209 Just over a month later, the Times reported that Trump deemed the press as “the enemy of the American people.”210

The impact of these verbal attacks has manifested in a variety of ways since the 2016 election. The jobs of journalists who report at the White House are significantly more difficult:

The First Amendment Watch, a project of New York University, notes that “[t]he Trump administration has been criticized for the decline in regularly scheduled, formal press briefings.”211 When press conferences do occur, Trump and his cabinet are often hostile and do not always answer questions posed by journalists – especially those from mainstream publications.

209 Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die, 181-82. 210 Michael M. Grynbaum, “Trump Calls the News Media the ‘Enemy of the American People,’” New York Times, February 17, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/business/trump-calls-the-news-media-the-enemy-of-the- people.html. 211 “Is This the End of White House Press Briefings?”, The First Amendment Watch of New York University, September 23, 2019, https://firstamendmentwatch.org/deep-dive/the-end-of-white-house-press-briefings/.

91 As noted in earlier sections, Trump and his supporters often espouse aggressive or violent rhetoric towards journalists. Jim Acosta of CNN and those from other mainstream publications are frequently the subject of such aggression:

When Mr. Acosta attempted a follow-up, about the special counsel’s investigation into Russia and the Trump campaign, the president’s patience — what little was left — evaporated. “That’s enough, that’s enough,” Mr. Trump said. “Put down the mic.” As cameras rolled, a White House aide leaned toward Mr. Acosta and attempted to remove the microphone from his hands. Mr. Acosta held on (“Pardon me, ma’am”) and declined to sit, as Mr. Trump continued to berate him. “CNN should be ashamed of itself, having you working for them,” the president said. “You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn’t be working for CNN.” He added, in a reference to the White House press secretary: “The way you treat Sarah Huckabee is horrible. You shouldn’t treat people that way.” Jabbing a finger in the reporter’s direction, he said, “When you report fake news, which CNN does a lot, you are the enemy of the people.”212

These verbal attacks often take place online, via social media. The article “Trump Shares,

Then Deletes, Twitter Post of Train Hitting Cartoon Person Covered by CNN Logo” covers an example of when this aggression has appeared on Trump’s Twitter page:

President Trump shared on Twitter a cartoon on Tuesday morning of a train running over a person with a CNN logo covering the person’s head, three days after a fatal collision in Charlottesville, Va. Mr. Trump deleted his retweet minutes later. Mr. Trump has been under fire for how he has publicly addressed bloody demonstrations by white nationalists over the weekend. Promoting a cartoon of a person being run over by a train appeared to belittle the attack by a driver who ran into a crowd of counterprotesters, leaving a 32- year-old woman dead on Saturday and 19 others injured. An Ohio man has been charged with second-degree murder in the crash. On Monday, Mr. Trump bowed to pressure and condemned white supremacists protesting the removal of a Confederate statue, and the president called racism “evil.” But later Monday, Mr. Trump took to Twitter to criticize what he called the fake news media for not being satisfied with his additional remarks.213

212 Michael M. Grynbaum, “‘You Are a Rude, Terrible Person’: After Midterms, Trump Renews His Attacks on the Press,” New York Times, November 7, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/business/media/trump-press- conference-media.html. 213 Eileen Sullivan and Maggie Haberman, “Trump Shares, Then Deletes, Twitter Post of Train Hitting Cartoon Person Covered by CNN Logo,” New York Times, August 15, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/trump-shares-then-deletes-twitter-post-of-cnn-cartoon-being-hit- by-train.html.

92 Actual violence towards journalists has increased since Trump took office in 2016. A shooting at the Capital Gazette newsroom in Baltimore (although the perpetrator was mobilized by personal issues with the Gazette, not by Trump’s rhetoric)214 to bomb threats towards the

Boston Globe, journalists are increasing unsafe. The article “Rough Treatment of Journalists in the Trump Era” recounts stories of journalists in the United States who have been pepper- sprayed, accosted by security, arrested, and verbally harassed on the job.215

The pattern of increased aggression towards journalists is not isolated to the United

States. The article “A Deadly Year for Journalists as Risk Shifts to the West” reports that, as of

October 11, 43 journalists had been killed in 2018 because of their work. This includes the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khasoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Times reporter Megan Specia writes:

“Typically journalists are not murdered in the United States,” said Courtney Radsch, the advocacy director for the Committee to Protect Journalists. “Typically they are not murdered in Western Europe. Yet we have seen it this year in both — which were previously considered bastions of press freedom — that journalists are being murdered and that there is a parallel of anti-press rhetoric happening.”… The organization documented more than 70 deaths in four separate years over the last decade, many of them related to crossfire in war. This year’s figures expose a new, worrying trend, she said. “There is an increase in attacks on journalists and journalism as an institution that is important to democracy and to the foundation of human rights,” Dr. Radsch said. “And we see that this is being undermined around the world.”216

This article shows the undoubtable correlation between anti-journalist rhetoric and the increase in violence against journalists.

214 Danielle Ohl, “Trump declines request to lower flags in memory of Capital Gazette shooting victims,” Baltimore Sun, July 3, 2018. https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/anne-arundel/ac-can-white-house-flag-half-staff- 20180703-story.html 215 Jacey Fortin, “Rough Treatment of Journalists in the Trump Era,” New York Times, May 25, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/business/media/ben-jacobs-reporter-montana.html 216 Megan Specia, “A Deadly Year for Journalists as Risk Shifts to the West,” New York Times, October 11, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/world/americas/journalists-killed.html

93 Science and climate change

Trump’s “fake news” rhetoric, often applied to criticism and mentions of his shortcomings, has also been used to apply to science and climate change. He has taken many actions to undermine the seriousness of climate change, such as pulling out of the Paris Climate

Agreement. Additionally, on March 12, 2019, Trump tweeted:

“Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace: ‘The whole climate crisis is not only Fake News, it’s Fake Science. There is no climate crisis, there’s weather and climate all around the world, and in fact carbon dioxide is the main building block of all life.’ @foxandfriends Wow!”217

The article “Trump’s Split-Screen Persona on Blaring Display in U.K. Visit” highlights

Trump’s inconsistencies on issues such as climate change:

Mr. Trump’s three-day trip punctuated the vagaries of his stands on some issues. He reiterated the possibility of armed conflict with Iran, but expressed his previously stated desire to talk with Iranian leaders. And he muddied his well-known denial of climate change and the science behind it…But Mr. Trump said he had dismissed the suggestion that the United States should do more. “Well, the United States right now has among the cleanest climates,” he said, adding incorrectly that pollution has lessened during his presidency.218

This not only highlights Trump’s inconsistent views, but also shows that he conforms to the expectations of other world leaders, thus calling his own leadership into question.

Additionally, they correct Trump’s falsehoods through the use of the word “incorrectly.”

The article “Doomsday Clock Is Set at 2 Minutes to Midnight, Closest Since 1950s” shows that Trump’s “fake news” rhetoric has undermined the seriousness of climate change.

They also found that “in 2017, the United States backed away from its longstanding leadership role in the world, reducing its commitment to seek common ground and undermining the overall effort toward solving pressing global governance challenges.”

217 Brandon Miller, “Trump tweets climate change skeptic in latest denial of science,” New York Times, March 12, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/12/us/trump-climate-change-tweet-patrick-moore/index.html 218 Maggie Haberman and Mark Landler, “Trump’s Split-Screen Persona on Blaring Display in U.K. Visit,” New York Times, June 5, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/world/europe/piers-morgan-donald-trump- interview.html

94 The scientists cited, among other destabilizing factors, the harsh rhetoric President Trump has exchanged with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un; Mr. Trump’s disavowal of the Iran deal; the hiring of climate-change deniers at the Environmental Protection Agency; and the administration’s plans to remake and expand the nation’s nuclear arsenal…Mr. Krauss acknowledged that in the “fake news” era, some critics were likely to accuse the scientists of having a political agenda. “People can say it’s a scam, but the point of this is to encourage public discussion,” he said. “What you’re trying to do is get people to act.” He said the clock “captures, for one day, deep existential threats that for most of the rest of the year aren’t talked about.”219

Additionally, in the article “Trump Insists He Was Right About Hurricane Dorian

Heading for Alabama,” the Times reports on Trump’s continuous denial that he misread a map and misconstrued weather patterns:

“I just know that Alabama was in the original forecast,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday. “They thought it would get it as a piece of it.” Later in the day, Mr. Trump tweeted a map from the South Florida Water Management District that he said supported his contention that Dorian had been heading for Alabama. “This was the originally projected path of the Hurricane in its early stages,” he said. “As you can see, almost all models predicted it to go through Florida also hitting Georgia and Alabama. I accept the Fake News apologies!” However, the map came with a warning that information from the National Hurricane Center and local emergency officials superseded it: “If anything on this graphic causes confusion, ignore the entire product.” By Thursday morning, it was clear that Mr. Trump had no intention of conceding that he was wrong about Alabama. In a tweet at 6:39 a.m., the president accused the media of not giving him the credit he deserves. “Alabama was going to be hit or grazed, and then Hurricane Dorian took a different path (up along the East Coast). The Fake News knows this very well. That’s why they’re the Fake News!,” he wrote.220

This illustrates Trump’s tendency to simultaneously undermine facts and the media, even when the truth is presented to him. The Times reporter dutifully reported what Trump said, and then cued the reader with the word “however,” to illustrate that the writer was then going to

219 Sewell Chan, “Doomsday Clock Is Set at 2 Minutes to Midnight, Closest Since 1950s,” New York Times, January 25, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/world/americas/doomsday-clock-nuclear-scientists.html. 220 Michael D. Shear and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, “Trump Insists He Was Right About Hurricane Dorian Heading for Alabama,” New York Times, September 4, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/us/politics/trump-hurricane- alabama-sharpie.html.

95 impart the truth about the incident. The reporter in this instance did not say Trump lied, but he still fact-checked Trump’s statement and provided readers with correct information.

Netanyahu analysis

As the Times reports on the rise of right-wing populism, as well as the rhetoric and other tactics used by leaders similar to Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu is consequently reported on during the period of analysis.

Like Trump, Netanyahu sees the mainstream media at the very least as a nuisance, and at the very worst, an enemy. The article “Netanyahu Accuses ‘the Left’ and the Media of Trying to

Oust Him” reports on rhetoric and tactics that would likely sound familiar to Americans today:

In a pugnacious speech on Wednesday evening before thousands of supporters, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, embroiled in graft investigations, railed against “the left” and “the media that serves it,” contending that they had ganged up to overthrow him….In Trumpian fashion, Mr. Netanyahu denounced the “fake news media,” which he said had joined with “the left” in what he called “an obsessive and unprecedented witch hunt against me and my family, in order to carry out a coup.” The point, he said, was to press the law enforcement authorities to file charges, no matter what.221

The rhetoric of “witch hunt” and “fake news media” and casting themselves as victims as legal investigations against them proceed illustrate stark similarity between Netanyahu and

Trump. Additionally, the use of the word “pugnacious” and words such as “embroiled” and

“railed” portray Netanyahu as somewhat unhinged.

Netanyahu has arguably taken his disdain for the press further than Trump. The article

“For Respected Israeli News Programs, an ‘Undignified’ End” recounts the “shut down the state

221 Isabel Kershner, “Netanyahu Accuses ‘the Left’ and the Media of Trying to Oust Him,” New York Times, August 9, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/09/world/middleeast/israel-netanyahu-investigations.html.

96 broadcasting authority’s time-honored television news program with only one hour’s notice” at the hands of the Israeli government under Netanyahu:222

By Wednesday, Israel Radio’s current affairs anchors were also choking up on air, bidding their farewells. After 81 years of broadcasting, the station said it would be playing music and providing hourly news bulletins until next week, when it is to be replaced by a new public corporation. The moves came after years of political wrangling and months of intensive involvement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Long preoccupied with his coverage in the news media, he had tried to bring changes to how the broadcasting authority was run… “Netanyahu did not like the independence that the corporation was showing,” said Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, director of the media reform program at the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan research center in Jerusalem. “They told him from square one that they would do what they wanted, in accordance with the authorities given to them by the law.”223

While the intertwined nature of the government and the news industry is not comparable to that of the United States, Netanyahu and the Israeli government’s actions towards the Israeli media in this circumstance indicate deep dislike and distrust of unmonitored media networks.

Other findings

The New York Times and other mainstream news outlets have been criticized for giving

Trump extensive coverage. Some view this as legitimizing the lies he tells, and broadcasting such lies more than is necessary.

Other aspects worth noting are the very intentional engagement with readers exhibited by the Times. Many stories asked for reader’s feedback, or otherwise communicated that the reader’s opinion was of value to the publication. The Times introduced the Reader Center on

May 30, 2017 “to capitalize on our readers’ knowledge and experience, using their voices to make our journalism even better. Our readers are among our greatest strengths, helping us to

222 Isabel Kershner, “For Respected Israeli News Programs, an ‘Undignified’ End,” New York Times, May 10, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/world/middleeast/israel-news-mabat-lehadashot.html. 223 Ibid.

97 distinguish ourselves from all of our competitors.”224 The deputy managing editor of the Times,

Cliff Levy, wrote:

Our readers (and listeners and viewers) can offer a wealth of story suggestions, insights, analysis and more. On our digital platforms and on social media, their voices amplify what we stand for: the power of information, ideas and debate to shape the world and inspire change. Our readers also hold us accountable, helping to ensure that we meet the standards of quality, fairness and accuracy that they expect from The New York Times.225

This engagement with readers manifests in the article “On Trust and Transparency: A.G.

Sulzberger, Our New Publisher, Answers Readers’ Questions,” in which Sulzberger introduces himself and his background before answering readers’ questions, such as “How do you win the battle with ‘fake news’ and reach those who believe The New York Times is biased?” and “As a longtime subscriber, my faith in The Times was deeply shaken when the Hillary numbers we saw every day leading up to the election turned out to be so incredibly off the mark. It was 82/18,

84/16; Hillary was going to dominate. After Trump won I kept asking myself how my dear New

York Times could have gotten it so wrong. What kinds of things will you do in the future to improve the accuracy of these types of polls?”226

224 “Introducing the Reader Center,” New York Times company, May 30, 2017, https://www.nytco.com/press/introducing-the-reader-center/. 225 Ibid. 226 The New York Times, “On Trust and Transparency: A.G. Sulzberger, Our New Publisher, Answers Readers’ Questions,” New York Times, January 22, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/reader-center/ag-sulzberger- publisher-reader-questions.html

98 Conclusion

Comparison of coverage

The Times covers “fake news” rhetoric much more extensively over the three-year period of analysis than Haaretz. This is evident through the sheer difference in the number of articles published by each news outlet on this subject. The following keyword searches in the Haaretz

NewsBank database returned 120 articles: “Netanyahu” and “fake news” (109 articles);

“Netanyahu” and “liberal media” (9); “Netanyahu” and “lying press” (2). Meanwhile, “Trump” and “fake news” “Trump” and “liberal media”, and “Trump” and “lying press” yielded 211 total returns. Additionally, 78 articles of the aforementioned analyzed articles contained both

“Trump” and “fake news” and “Netanyahu and “fake news.”

Contrastingly, the following keyword searches were conducted in The New York Times archive via the Nexis Lexis database yielded 1,458 articles for “Trump” and “fake news”,

“Trump” and “liberal media”, “Trump” and “lying press”, and only 23 for “Netanyahu” and

“fake news”, “Netanyahu” and “liberal media”, and “Netanyahu” and “lying press”.

Haaretz covers topics that are relevant to American Jews generally, and especially when it comes to this topic. The Haaretz.com Twitter account’s bio is “All the news, opinion and analysis from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.” The “Jewish world” is understood to refer to Jewish people living outside of Israel. Like all news publications, Haaretz is aware of its audience and the content that readers desire. Gideon Levy, a Haaretz journalist known for his controversial opinion pieces critical of the Israeli government, said that he “much more popular overseas than here” in an interview in Tel Aviv in May 2019.227 Additionally, rampant media

227 Interview with Gideon Levy, May 12, 2019.

99 delegitimization and distrust of left-leaning organizations is not a new phenomenon in Israel, which contributes to the fractional coverage in comparison to the Times.

Similarly, the Times likely covers “fake news” rhetoric so extensively for many reasons, one of them being because its editors too knows their audience. After Trump was elected, subscriptions to the Times and other vilified news outlets skyrocketed.228 Readers expected to see extensive coverage of Trump, his rhetoric, and his actions. By subscribing by the Times and other outlets explicitly vilified by Trump, subscribers are affirming that they support and believe these publications.

Haaretz reported more than the Times on the similarities between Trump and Netanyahu specifically, and reported more on Trump than the country of the publication’s own prime minister. It is important to note that Trump has enabled Netanyahu in many ways and emboldened him to act in ways he never would have with any predecessor in the White House.

Trump is changing the norms and values on a global scale, even for leaders like Netanyahu who already engaged in anti-media and anti-democratic rhetoric and tendencies. They present themselves as victim of systems and of indictments and against the “elite,” so their fans identify with this – even when they themselves are a part of the elite class.229

In terms of the rhetoric used by journalists from the Times and Haaretz is often similar, and is both searing and deeply critical of the leadership reported on. For instance, two articles analyzed from both publications that fall under the theme of “right-wing populism”:

228 Jim Rutenberg, “By Attacking the Press, Donald Trump May Be Doing It a Favor,” New York Times, December 18, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/18/business/media/by-attacking-the-press-donald-trump-may-be- doing-it-a-favor.html. 229 King Bibi, 2018.

100 The article “Impeccable Timing and Brilliant Campaigning Give Netanyahu His Biggest

Win Yet,” published by Haaretz on April 10, 2019, recounts the mutualistic relationship and shared tactics of right-wing leaders across the globe in light of Netanyahu’s re-election:

Whether it was [false] news stories about Benny Gantz’s phone being hacked or the ex- army chief seeing a psychologist, Netanyahu always managed to make the issue about his challenger’s unsuitability for office rather than his own. When it looked like a network of fake Twitter accounts had been uncovered working for him, Netanyahu brilliantly turned the tables on the opposition with his “We’re not bots” press conference last week. And there were the convenient, right-on-cue interventions from abroad — courtesy of U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro — to present him as the master statesman...For all the lies and fake news coming from Netanyahu and his team throughout the campaign, his initial reaction to the exit polls Tuesday was much more accurate than Gantz’s. Netanyahu said “the right-wing bloc led by Likud has won” — and he was ultimately proved right.230

Similarly, the Times reports on the rhetoric and actions commonly used by Trump that are also exhibited by other right-wing populists. This is exhibited in an article from October 2018 about the then-recently elected President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro:

But much like President Trump and populist leaders around the world, Mr. Bolsonaro has tapped into a deep well of resentment at the political establishment. He channeled Brazilians’ anger over staggering levels of corruption and crime, presenting himself as the only candidate tough enough to solve them. ‘Brazilians want a hero,’ said Daniel Machado, a professor of political marketing, referring to Mr. Bolsonaro’s vow to take radical measures to fix Brazil. Millions of voters see his inflammatory positions — he has called women ignorant, told a female lawmaker she was too ugly to rape and questioned why women should earn the same salary as men — as straight talk from a man who is not afraid to say, and do, what is needed.231

Thus, reporters from Haaretz and the Times are able to still adhere to the universally understood journalistic standard of objectivity while still conveying the gravity of the situations

230 Pfeffer, “Impeccable Timing and Brilliant Campaigning Give Netanyahu His Biggest Win Yet.” 231 Londoño and Darlington, “Far-Right Candidate Jair Bolsonaro Widens Lead in Brazil’s Presidential Race.”

101 posed by such leaders through powerful and skillful word choice, such as “inflammatory” in the

Times article.

The Times and Haaretz cover many similar themes in these keyword searches, such as xenophobic executive actions and rhetoric; immigration, nativism, and white supremacy; international relationships; the global rise of right-wing populism; the tendency of right-wing leaders to delegitimize and subvert the mainstream media and create alternative channels to communicate with constituents; collusion and indictment charges; elections, and the U.S./Israel relationship.

The aforementioned themes reveal a great deal about the global rise of right-wing populism. By focusing on the rhetoric of Trump and Netanyahu, two leaders who seek to silence any criticism of their leadership, capabilities, and policies, one can discern how similar tactics are used to advance a common goal of both politicians: Unilateral and unquestioning acceptance of their policies, ethnonationalism, and advancement of policies such as economic conservativism and strict immigration policies. These tendencies and goals, as well as the rhetoric used to advance these objectives, illuminate the dark commonalities of right-wing populism around the world.

These goals are easier to achieve thanks to the existence and expansion of social media.

Trump’s Twitter account and Netanyahu’s Facebook page allow the two leaders to interact directly with their intended audience without having to go through a third-party news platform as in the past. Additionally, both Trump and Netanyahu have news outlets that essentially serve as uncritical mouthpieces for their leadership: Fox News in the U.S., and the Shel Adelson-backed

Israel Hayom in Israel. Adelson is an American billionaire and Netanyahu supporter. The most widely circulated newspaper in the state of Israel is unquestioningly in favor of the prime

102 minister, and the highest rated cable news network in the United States serves as an uncritical platform for the president – this is a threat to democracy.

Additionally, Netanyahu and Trump consistently push the idea that their constituents cannot believe anything they hear unless it comes directly from them, that they, as leaders, need to be adored and admired, and that the mainstream media is the “enemy of the people” or “out to get them.” In this sense, social media, and the Internet generally, has been a miracle for

Netanyahu and Trump. These alternative outlets have allowed Netanyahu to continue this line of practice and become a strong media critic directly, and not just through Israel Hayom. However, he was controlling the media before social media through Israel Hayom: The relationship and tactic existed already, and social media is simply another powerful tool. Whereas Trump was already a TV star, and audiences loved him because he was a colorful character and said outrageous things.

The aforementioned concept – that only they, the leaders, are credible sources – is the first step on a very slippery slope to authoritarianism. It is important to frame such issues through the lens of law and society studies. The laws in both Israel and the United States render both systems democracies. However, the leaders of these countries can and do act in ways that subvert democratic practices, and it is essential to not be naïve about the frequency with which this happens.

Another noteworthy similarity between Trump and Netanyahu is the criminal investigations into the conduct of both leaders during their time in power:

…both lasted for two years, targeted the occupant of the highest office in the land, and were carried out by muted, straitlaced attorneys in environments that were anything but. There was an important difference, however: whereas the Mueller report’s release truly made waves, Mandelblit’s announcement of charges was hardly surprising; there had been leaks about the exact indictments Netanyahu would face weeks before they were declared. Still, the news dominated front-page coverage for several days…The timing

103 was bad for Netanyahu: polls showed that the newly formed centrist Blue and White party, headed by Benny Gantz, former chief of staff for the Israel Defense Forces, held a decisive lead in the race for prime minister. A third of the public said that Netanyahu should resign immediately.232

Suggestions for journalists

Journalists need to be vigilant as these right-wing populist tendencies become more and more commonplace. The hallmarks of journalistic ethics include the four pillars of the Society of

Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics: Seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be accountable and transparent.233 However, the era of reporting on “both sides” with equal weight is over. The Times already uses rhetoric that is critical of Trump, as illustrated in this thesis. However, when a prominent figure, such as a president or prime minister, makes remarks that are blatantly false, invoke racism or xenophobic rhetoric, or otherwise disenfranchises a large group of people with baseless accusations, such remarks should not be reported on as legitimate or factual, or reported on to excess. Similarly, these remarks need to be called what they are, and not simply “racially charged” or other such delicate phrasing.

Many big thinkers in journalism have long pondered how to best cover Trump in recent years. Kyle Pope, the editor-in-chief and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review, urges reporters to “take the story back” rather than letting Trump and his surrogates control the conversation.234 He calls for “a new journalistic enterprise,” and a “rethinking of how we tell our stories.” Among his recommendations: more first-person stories by reporters who cover the

232 Margalit, “A Ruinous Obsession.” 233 “Code of Ethics,” Society of Profesisonal Journalists, https://www.spj.org/pdf/spj-code-of-ethics.pdf 234 Kyle Pope, “It’s time to rethink how we cover Trump,” Columbia Journalism Review, January 22, 2018, https://www.cjr.org/politics/trump-coverage-inauguration-press-media.php

104 president, more oral histories with key players, more stories that detail “theoretical what-ifs” relating to the issues and not just he-said, she-said stories in an attempt at journalistic balance.

Similarly, author and columnist Keel Hunt urges reporters to get out of the briefing room and stop covering every tweet without challenge and balance. “Trump’s mini-explosions on

Twitter, as he watches ‘Fox News & Friends’ each morning, may absorb him but should not distract the nation’s press corps…All this means that Trump wins the daily scrum – and, if that persists, it will probably hand him his re-election next year.”235

Politico’s senior media writer Jack Shafer recommends journalists “starve the troll” in part by decoding his “misdirections” on Twitter. If Trump makes an unsupported claim, debunk it. But also examine why he may have said it and provide readers with context – this can be added with qualification like, “in an apparent attempt to bury negative news about his recent proposal…”236

When reporting on Trump, Netanyahu, and other such populist leaders, context is similarly needed in order to properly under the motivation, goals, and relationships of these leaders, both individually and collectively. David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, writes:

Just as Netanyahu provided Trump instruction on the political possibilities of right-wing populism, Trump has provided Netanyahu with instruction on the possibilities of outrageous invective, voter suppression, and disdain for the law. Netanyahu now delights in the use of such phrases as “fake news.” Investigations into his financial adventures are “witch hunts.” To suppress the Arab vote in last week’s election, his supporters mounted more than a thousand cameras at polling places where Arab citizens ordinarily vote, the better to intimidate them. And, of course, both men like a wall. As Trump put it, “Walls work. Just ask Israel.” To which his proud mentor tweeted, “President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.” Anshel Pfeffer, a reporter for Haaretz and the author of an astute

235 Keel Hunt, “Covering the Trump administration requires journalists to ditch old habits,” The Tennessean, January 18, 2019, https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/columnists/2019/01/18/donald-trump-media-coverage- washington-press-corp/2594185002/ 236 Jack Shafer, “The New Rules for Covering Trump,” Politico, November 28, 2016, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/donald-trump-media-coverage-new-rules-214485

105 biography of Netanyahu, writes that both men thrive on resentment and “have an uncanny ability to sense their rivals’ weak spots and sniff out their voters’ inner fears.”237

The dangers of “fake news” rhetoric are on full display, especially in the United States:

Outright violence towards journalists has increased since the 2016 election, alongside Trump’s encouragement of such violence. This very well may pose a legal issue per the case of

Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), as it states that speech can be prohibited if it is “directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and if it is “likely to incite or produce such action.”238

The press will be attacked by Trump and Netanyahu regardless of how carefully the reporting is done, so journalists should feel empowered to call the vile actions and rhetoric of these leaders and their administrations for what they are. Mainstream media outlets are universally framed by leaders like Netanyahu and Trump, as well as by their supporters, as the enemy. For instance, it is a professional tactic of Israel Hayom, the free, Adelson-backed Israeli paper first published in 2007, to frame itself in terms of “let me tell you what you're not going to read in other mainstream papers and let me tell you why: it’s because they all hate Bibi, they’re all lefties, they’re biased,” and other such tactics.239 Similarly, Trump and Netanyahu expect unquestioning and unwavering adoration from constituents and the press. Journalists must push back against this sort of egoism at all costs.

Additionally, I found that there is a need to reframe the way Israeli politics is discussed in the mainstream media. Currently, Israel and its politics are often framed as a Jewish issue. The

Trump administration has actively conflated Israel and Judaism, most recently through passing an “Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism” that codes Judaism as an ethnicity under

237 David Remnick, “The Trump-Netanyahu Alliance,” New Yorker, April 14, 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/22/the-trump-netanyahu-alliance?utm_campaign=aud- 238 For a detailed look at the case, see “Brandenburg v. Ohio,” Oyez. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1968/492. 239 Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, interview with Lilli Sher, Jerusalem, Israel, audio, May 16, 2019. “Bibi” is a common nickname for Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel.

106 Title IV and essentially criminalizes speech critical of Israel on college campuses.240 As a Jewish and American college student who is deeply involved with my religious group and also is critical of the Israeli government and its policies, I am deeply concerned about such conflation. While

Israel is, indeed, a Jewish state, it is essential that Israel is not referred to as an inherently Jewish issue. Haaretz is correct in its knowledge that many Jewish people who don’t live in Israel are interested in Israeli politics, culture, and society, and it’s important for a news outlet to be aware of its audience. However, when any publication discusses the U.S./Israel relationship, especially under Trump and Netanyahu’s respective leaderships, it is not a Jewish issue, but rather an issue of white supremacy, capitalism, military power, and arms and technology dealings. As Remnick points out the many similarities in their goals and rhetoric earlier, readers should have that understanding of the two leaders, rather than believing Trump to be a president who actually supports Jewish people.

When comparing how “fake news” is reported on in the United States and Israel, it is also important to note the differing media landscapes and the fact that “fake news” is more of an issue in the U.S. than in Israel. Both of these differences can largely be attributed to the geographical size difference of the two countries. Israel is roughly the size of the state of New Jersey; it is arguably more difficult for false information to spread uncorrected for as long as it can in the

United States, and the media industry is similarly much smaller and more concentrated in Israel.

240 “Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism,” The White House, December 11, 2019, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-combating-anti-semitism/

107 Limitations of study

The limitations to this study must be acknowledged. I worked on my thesis for about one year, beginning shortly before my research trip to Israel in May 2019. With more time, the study could be more complex or otherwise in-depth. I examined just two outlets’ coverage over a three-year period. I am also constrained by the keyword searches I chose to conduct. This may not paint a full picture of the scope of Netanyahu and Trump’s rhetoric and what that rhetoric means for both journalists and the population at large.

In terms of methodology, I collected my data through Microsoft Excel, and organized my data in chronological order. I sorted the stories by keyword search, article title, section published in, and themes. This sorting method could have been more sophisticated. While I conducted an analysis of content and rhetoric, I was again limited by the 6 total keyword searches that I conducted. Other keyword searches would have returned different rhetoric and different content that may have benefitted this study.

I am similarly impeded by my own biases as a Jewish American and as someone who is politically progressive and leftist.

Suggestions for further research

This study could be expanded to analyze coverage from a larger timeframe, or the coverage of more than two media outlets. The rhetoric of other leaders that use similar delegitimizing tactics could also be analyzed.

There is also the potential to examine media literacy and public trust in traditional media outlets. In general, many people have stopped believing Trump and Netanyahu’s claims that they genuinely want to fix media institutions and improve them. It is now seen as populistic tactic to

108 serve narrow interests. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, public trust in media outlets has increased, while trust in the government has decreased.241 This is also reflected in Israeli polling.242

Another interesting avenue for research would be the effectiveness and rise of fact- checking mechanisms, such as PolitiFact in the United States or The Whistle in Israel. Such services have ballooned in the time of Trump.

In conclusion

While many fantasies of the alt-right have manifested on the Internet since the era of

Trump began – such as the videos caricaturing Trump engaged in violence against journalists,

Democrats, immigrants, and anyone else who otherwise threatens the narrow vision of Trump’s

America – the confronted group has the power to shape their fantasies as well. Through solid fact-checking, reporting, and contextualizing, journalists have the power to illuminate the truth amidst a myriad of lies. Together, we can imagine a better and more just world, starting first with honest, cutting-edge reporting of the events and actions that impact us all.

Additionally, I am concluding my thesis writing process in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak. At the end of February 2020 and beginning of March 2020, Trump was shrugging the

COVID-19 outbreak off as a “hoax” created by the Democratic Party and “fake news media.”243

As the virus surged across the country with more dead in the United States than any other

241Tonia E. Ries et al, “Edelman Trust Barometer 2020,” https://www.edelman.com/trustbarometer 242 Tamar Hermann, Or Anabi, William Cubbison, Ella Heller, “IDI Releases 2019 Democracy Index,” January 7, 2020, https://en.idi.org.il/articles/29494 243 Bethania Palma, “Did President Trump Refer to the Coronavirus as a ‘Hoax’?” Snopes, March 2, 2020, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-remark/ Rebecca Klar, “Trump: 'Fake News Media,' Democrats working to 'inflame the CoronaVirus situation,’” The Hill, March 9, 2020, https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/486559-trump-fake-news-media-democrats-working- to-inflame-the-coronavirus

109 country in the world, Trump has soberly admitted that he knew about the threat of the coronavirus the whole time, but has blamed others for failing to act. His presidency is a threat to both public health and democracy. This must be reported on as such. The Times recently drew criticism for a now-deleted Tweet that “some experts” found it dangerous for people to use household disinfectants to kill the coronavirus. This has been dubbed “terminal both sides-ism” by some, and this practice should be avoided at all costs.244

244 Alex Henderson, ““Terminal both-sides-ism”: NYT slammed for tweet on Trump’s household disinfectant suggestion,” April 25, 2020, Salon, https://www.salon.com/2020/04/24/terminal-both-sides-ism-nyt-slammed-for- tweet-on-trumps-household-disinfectant-suggestion_partner/

110 Bibliography

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Conclusion

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