By Graham Vanbergen
– It must be obvious to anyone watching political events across the
Western world that the media is in big trouble. The availability of
multimedia news platforms has accelerated a decline in the 21st century
of traditional newspapers and even television news, a fact that is not
new. The emergence of full blown state censorship in a modern democracy
because of the change in news delivery is.
The demise of the mainstream media has of course been exacerbated by a
lack of public trust in journalism and news outlets with only about one third of
the public trusting it in America. With 18-49 years olds trust falling
even further with barely a quarter accepting mainstream media as a
source of reliable information, the story is pretty much the same in
Britain and Europe more widely.
In America, Clinton’s loss at the ballot box ended with the
establishment finger firmly pointed to Russia that somehow it put its
“finger on the scale” to help Trump become triumphant. This has ended
with public trust falling even further as the cold-war bogeyman is not
new either.
However, what we are now witnessing is the very same strategy in
Germany by Chancellor Merkel, who, fighting for her rapidly declining
popularity is already adopting the Obama strategy by blaming Putin and
Russian agents for what will be inevitable losses at the upcoming
election in September 2017. Merkel suffered a sobering defeat
in regional elections in her constituency of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,
with her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) coming third behind the Social
Democrats (SPD) and the rightwing populists Alternative für Deutschland
(AfD) a few months back.
