Are journalists calling kettle black?

Mark Humphrey AP image credit

Op-ed: The most consistent criticism of Hillary Clinton throughout the election campaign has been how much people distrust her.

This is heard as often, or even more often, than her email problems, Benghazi deaths or her foundation’s perceived but unproven corruption.

Donald Trump’s failure to disclose his taxes as all major candidates have since 1960 is given far less coverage.

Many dutifully report that Donald Trust is trusted even less. Does that mean the issue should stop being the lead story?

Given that it is being promoted by journalists, voters should be reminded how little respect they have for journalists. I wonder what a poll of who they trust more, Clinton or journalists, would show. Whatever. It would stop neither from carrying on.

I heard this almost every day in the offices of the Association Press I worked in around the world.

Our editors tried to be wizards, and find ways to make people believe us. Such as using fewer unnamed sources, or just having more sources to begin with.

Some of these ideas were well thought out, even if they had no impact. There is too much untrustworthy news out there for people, throughout the world, to not question what they read or see.

“Another poll came out this week showing that in the hierarchy of trust, journalists figure near the bottom of the heap.

“Some of us take a perverse pride in being down there with the money-changers and the harlots (actually, the latter sometimes rate rather highly in these surveys.)

“The comforting theory is that if everybody hates us, we must be doing something right.

“The Ipsos MORI poll published on Friday found that among 1,018 British respondents, only one in five trusted journalists to tell the truth — on a par with bankers and below real estate agents,” the New York Times reported.

If people do not trust journalists to tell them the whole story why should they support demands for Hillary to have traditional news conferences.

In this election, fund raising and “front porch” journalism has helped keep her in the lead, though it is no guarantee she will win.

She generally holds about a 5 percent lead among those most likely to vote.

There’s more good news.

She has had enormous success fund raising, instead of seeking cable TV coverage of rallies.

“Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party just had their best fundraising month yet.

“The presidential candidate released her fundraising totals for the month of August when she raised $143 million for her campaign and party—an impressive 58% jump from July’s $90 million. According to the Washington Post, $62 million was donated to her campaign committee and $81 million went to the Democratic National Committee and state parties,” Fortune reported.

Rallies got Bernie Sanders and Trump lots of free coverage but it remains to be seen whether they can win the Big Kahuna in the absence of a ground game. Trump’s branding sells many products but no one knows if it can win a majority of 146 million registered voters.

The fact that the polls are so close likely helped raise money for Hillary, and will keep Democrats from trying to run out the clock in expectation of a landslide.

Some say she should not push Trump too hard; let him blow the election. Don’t do anything that might wake him up.
“… there is evidence to support the idea that Trump very well doesn’t actually want to be the next U.S. president. There is a scenario where he is a dog who was chasing a car, and just so happened to catch one right before it hopped on the freeway. And it’s a little hard to jump off at that point, so he is rolling with it.

“Famed documentarian Michael Moore posted on his personal blog recently that he knows ‘for a fact’ that Trump does not actually want to be president. That the whole thing started because he wanted to get a better deal for his NBC show The Apprentice and thought he could garner some nice publicity and leverage by running a stunt campaign. He is not the first to accuse Trump of such a thing during this campaign,” Modern Times reports.