George pointed out that this is why demagogues like Donald Trump go for the easy sell — not because they are ideologically attached to white nationalism for example, but because these are effective, easy political stances.
“If it was easy to promote democracy and human rights, Donald Trump would be doing, championing that,” he said. “He is not, because it is a hard sell.”
The often easy answer, George noted, is to blame it on the people “because it lets us off the hook.” The more challenging question is how the system let down people so badly that they are willing to overturn norms and rebel against expertise. This is a much harder question because media, academe, and other institutions across society end up pointing fingers at each other.
“We have failed the people over a long time such that they are willing to opt for easy but wrong answers.” George said.
Jabal, though, said that reporters can do more in presenting facts and data by using real-life experiences and doing more investigative reporting in the mainstream. Beyond content itself, the PR practitioner also emphasized the need to study how information is distributed. He finds a problem with Facebook giving users just one side of the story, as an effect of echo chambers and filter bubbles.
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