In a desire to be professional, the journalists at the Wellesley News have been dancing around a sentiment that resounds in the hearts and minds of a majority of our campus, not to mention 65,844,954 Americans. We use words like bigoted, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic and racist as critiques of modern society. But frankly, I think Donald Trump uses these words as a weapon. He does not see these descriptors as serious criticisms that should be meditated on and changed. Describing him with words that use more than two syllables suddenly gets you branded as an “educated intellectual snob,” as if thinking is a bad thing. In Trump’s America, reading comprehension is only optional. Betsy DeVos will ensure that.
In a professional newspaper, I can’t curse at Trump, nor can I imply that I think the world would be an infinitely better place were he to disappear off the face of the Earth. Professionalism insists that I not implore my readers to retweet unflattering pictures of Trump boarding Air Force One in an effort to physically shame him much in the way he body-shamed Alicia Machado, Rosie Donnell, Megyn Kelly and many others.
In my efforts to accurately cover white nationalist Richard Spencer’s physical assault, I must follow suit with my fellow journalists and refer to Spencer as a proponent of the Alt-Right instead of a Nazi, which is his proper label.
As an unbiased source, I cannot refer to Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Al Franken as “roasting” Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. I can only directly quote DeVos’s answers during her confirmation instead of labelling her as grossly unqualified and incompetent.
In the current media, we must report the Trump’s administration’s “alternative facts”. In order to continue the 1984-like fascist propaganda of the current administration, we must ignore conflicts of interest and the passing of executive orders that violate human rights. We will report the statements of Press Secretary Sean Spicer as he blatantly lies to the American people. As a reporter without bias, I have to remember that in 2017 there are no such things as facts, only “different perspectives.”
It is not a fact that 97 percent of scientists believe in climate change and that it will slowly destroy our earth, resulting in the fall of the human race. It is only an opinion that breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in American women and that defunding Planned Parenthood puts 900,000 lives of women at risk. It is not a fact that Trump’s ban on immigration is illegal.
As journalists we are not allowed to say that the Trump administration is creating an American hellscape which makes the post-apocalyptic world of the Hunger Games seem inevitable, were it not for the fact that women and people of color had power in those novels.
It is our job right now to print vague, circular phrases that dance around the fact that our President is actively destroying our country. It is in our professional interest to avoid outrightly saying that Trump and his administration will results in the death of thousands of innocent lives. We must report on Steve Bannon as if he is a qualified professional and not a misogynistic racist whose historic parallel would be Joseph Goebbels, although Bannon would probably appreciate that comparison due to his interest in propaganda and anti-Semitism.
We should ignore valiant protest movements by Black Lives Matter in favor of quaint pastoral photos of white supremacists in Kentucky. In an effort to appeal to moderates, we will ignore the rights of trans people, people of color and immigrants. Instead we should focus on the pussy hats and the handsome white men who managed to march. If we ever entertain the idea of a Clinton presidency, we will note that more Hispanics and Blacks voted for Obama and Clinton. We will completely avoid the mention that more than 50 percent of white women voted for Trump because intersectional feminism is too long of a phrase.
Most importantly, we will normalize Trump because we are the mainstream media. We will normalize a man who is racist and evil. We won’t say the sentiment that is most on our mind: Fuck Donald Trump.
