Life in the post-truth era

The mainstream media can't hold back a tsunami of misinformation

Donald Trump
Donald Trump at his campaign rally in New York
(Image credit: Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

If Donald Trump wins on Nov. 5, it will be partly because the traditional press failed to present the former president as he truly is. That's the argument put forward by many media critics, who accuse The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, and other legacy outlets of "sanewashing" Trump: selectively quoting or editing his rambling, threat-filled, and profanity-laced rally speeches. This habit stems from mainstream news outlets wanting to appear "objective," the argument goes. If they did accurately cover Trump's extremism and bizarre behavior, it would look like they were in the tank for Democrats.

As a result, Trump's repeated pledge to round up and deport millions of undocumented immigrants, whom he has called "animals" and "not human," gets labeled by the Times as "hyperbolic rhetoric" rather than 100-proof authoritarianism. And his weird disquisitions — about whether it's better to be eaten by a shark or to die from electrocution, for example — go unmentioned in many reports on campaign events, which instead focus on sane-sounding policy announcements, such as eliminating taxes on tips.

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Theunis Bates is a senior editor at The Week's print edition. He has previously worked for Time, Fast Company, AOL News and Playboy.