JUST SPELL MY NAME RIGHT

JUST SPELL MY NAME RIGHT! In print journalism class in the early 1970s at the, then-new, Howard University School of Communications, we learned that with regard to politicians and their political campaigns, this basic newspaper truism : “Please spell my name right! it does not matter what you say. I still get free publicity.” President Donald Trump rose to Presidential power in 2016 by repeatedly saying so many outrageously absurd things that “objectively” savvy, wary newspapers, radio, television, internet carried hourly, often as their lead story every day. One story was that he was going to build a wall along the border with Mexico; and that Mexico was going to pay for it! What a huge whopping lie! But it led the news for days on in, into and after inauguration. People are busy and so dizzy in the whirling milieu of social adherence to norms of work, social life, consumption, few have time or desire to reflect. They just scan, sniff a familiar fragment of fragrant political information & take a big bite! That is all that it takes. Like Pavlov’s behaviorally modified dog, their stimulus responsiveness-reward-getting training kicks in. They salivate! A point here is that news media are contributing to the reelection of Donald Trump by apparent or feigned ignorance of the basic rule of political coverage that is cited above. They deny it, but do it. The most recent example of Trump-trampling is the claim that he is taking a tablet a day of hydroxychloquine (his highly touted “cure”)to ward off coronavirus Covid19. He has been doing it for a week, he claims. News! Well to quote Reagan,”there you go again!”