Praises of the Notorious

Praises of the Notorious

        Among the hundreds, if not thousands of articles that mocked and criticised him, stood one that supports Donald Trump. The article ‘Make America Great Again!’ appeared on the front page of The Crusader, the official newspaper of the Ku Klux Klan, the infamous white supremacist group. The article is described as the organization’s official endorsement of Trump right after it was published in numerous other newspapers and tabloids, such as The Washington Post and The Mic when it was not the case. This reflects a problem that should not be neglected: the media twists the content of material being reported simply to attract its audience.

        The well-known article is written by Pastor Thomas Robb, the leader of the white Christian supremacist group. He believes this ‘new’ America with ‘no perversion that is not now fully embraced’ has its former ‘wholesome understanding of race and gender’ revoked, demonstrated by legalization of same-sex marriage and the proposal of gender-neutral bathrooms in American public schools. (Robb) He considers the present generation as ‘wicked and perverse’ (Robb) that is pushing ourselves to our doomsday. He reckons that the solution to this predicament is to ‘Love our God and love our people’ (Robb), implying that America should return to its previous state of being a white Christian Republic. Donald Trump is mentioned in this article as an example to reflect how people nowadays do not uphold this belief anymore for the antagonism faced by his nationalist ideas and not as the center of this article.

        In The Washington Post, the title of the article that reports about the one in The Crusader is “KKK’s official newspaper supports Donald Trump for president” (Holley). Further in the article it is insinuated that the article by Robb is an official endorsement. As aforementioned, the main idea of the article is that mind-sets of Americans have to be changed, in order for the country to become great again. In spite of the notion being debatable, Donald Trump is the ‘tool’ to make the article more persuasive for his authority and fame instead of the focus of the article as written in The Washington Post. However, the message is being contorted so that the article attracts more audience, it is described as ‘a de facto endorsement’ in the article by Holley. Despite the fact that the organization does support the candidate for his ‘Americans first’ principles, it is not the official endorsement as reported, and thus we can consider that The Washington Post is reporting false material.

Another example of media gaining attention by slanting the material being reported is seen in an article of Mic. named ‘KKK paper the 'Crusader' endorses Donald Trump for president’ written by Tom McKay. It was actually featured in the article of Robb explaining his article not being a formal endorsement of Trump, yet the article by McKay is named for its reporting of the Ku Klux Klan’s endorsement of the candidate. The article started off with quoting the article written by Robb. Then, it mentioned Robb’s response of the article not being an official endorsement and lastly giving a brief introduction of Ku Klux Klan which is ended with recounting Trump denouncing David Duke. This is another prominent example of media bending the content being reported to enlarge its audience. Trump was mentioned in the article on The Crusader as his nationalist idea is compatible with the message Robb conveyed: America should return to a white Christian republic to be great again. Yet the article in Mic. highlights the Ku Klux Klan’s endorsement of Trump, regardless of its misinterpretation.

Despite how both reporters in The Washington Post and The Mic. named their articles, ‘Make America Great Again!’ as an official endorsement of Donald Trump, is actually not even the focal point of the other two articles. It was used as the bait to engage and draw audience into the respective articles. This leads to a question: if the articles are not relying on misreporting the one that supports Donald Trump to create an audience, why do they bother to garble its message? The answer is simple: one of the easiest way to gain an audience for your media is to target something that does not follow the trend. When something does not follow the norm, it stands out from the rest. Donald Trump was being severely criticised by the media and the public for his misogynistic, xenophobic and Muslim-hating comments. When the article written by Robb was published, it instantly sparked up discussions and criticism in social media as it does not conform to the trend. See it as an opportunity, Holley and McKay used it to capture the interest of potential audience. Yet simply describing it as an article that supports Donald Trump would not be as strong and effective as claiming that it is an official endorsement, which leads to the misreporting as aforementioned. The nature of the article was not the concern, let alone whether what they use is the major content or not, the mention is merely their way to buy attention.