Even in a yuck election, unfair’s unfair

The 2016 US presidential election will go down in history as the yuckiest global public spectacle ever. Nothing is off limits anymore. Detailed accusations of sexual advances, alleged assaults including rape, charges of lies, cover-ups and tax evasion are all now a daily diet on American TV — and for those who watch the cable networks, on a 24x7 basis.

The average viewer is so sick that the American Psychological Association issued tips to help Americans cope until November 8. “Limit media consumption,” goes one tip. “Avoid getting into discussions about the election if you think they have the potential to escalate to conflict,” goes another.

Since the two major US political parties respectively nominated Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton — the two most reviled candidates in history to run for president — the media has taken the lead to drive everyone into the muck. It all started when Clinton, in the first debate, charged that Trump disrespects women by citing his supposed treatment of a Miss Universe contestant from 20 years ago. Trump, the bully who never ever lets a charge pass, tweeted the next day questioning the morals of the contestant, inviting Americans to view a sex tape of her. This was a low for the season.

The media could have stayed above the fray and redirected a helpless nation to move up several levels, for example to a discussion on policy, simply by not covering the muck. But the news barons decided that dirtier is better. Two days before the second debate, the Washington Post published extremely lewd comments about women that Trump made 11 years ago in private, not realising that he was on a live microphone. NBC published the video minutes afterwards. Trump responded by holding a news conference with three women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault, in one case 37 years ago, and inviting them all to the second debate.

If you thought all this was bad enough, you have no clue how the American media thinks. During the second debate, one of the moderators asked Trump four times about the assault question, ending with: “Have you ever done those things?” Trump flatly denied it by saying, “No, I have not.”

This gave the media a green light — and ample energy to leverage its vast resources — to prove Trump wrong. Each day now, media outlets from the NYT to People magazine to regional newspapers have carried reports about various women who are all coming forward with claims against Trump for his behaviour many years ago.

In an NYT story, a woman charges — with no evidence — that Trump reached out to her 30 years ago on a Braniff 707 airliner “like an octopus” on a flight between Dallas and New York by lifting the divider arm between first class seats. There are now reports countering the story suggesting that Braniff never flew 707s and that arm rests on 707 first class seats never folded.

It is sad that American journalism, which gave the world the likes of Ben Bradlee, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who investigated the Watergate scandal, and which brought to light the Pentagon Papers showing that the Truman administration gave military aid to France in its war against the communist-led Viet Minh, thus directly involving the US in Vietnam, has come down to this.

Trump has been a tabloid and playboy figure active under the klieg lights-dominated entertainment world for over 20 years. He owned the Miss Universe show in which contestants did not exactly participate because of their high Mensa scores. As a billionaire and casino mogul he has been constantly around women, many of whom may have initiated advances towards him to curry favours. How come news editors did not ask a simple question of all these new accusers: “Where were you with your stories all these years?”

The point is not to excuse Trump’s behaviourbut isn’t it fair to expect the media to cover serious accusations about Clinton just as aggressively?

The Associated Press, after conducting a detailed investigation, just reported that “Clinton's time as secretary of state and as a private citizen after her failed 2008 presidential campaign have generated new issues revolving around the intersection of money, politics, privilege and privacy”. At a minimum, don’t these story lines deserve equal airtime?

If Clinton wins, the big story in this election would be how the media helped suppress negative stories about her but heavily accentuated Trump’s negatives. Even if it meant the yuck factor had to be dialled up like never before.

The writer is MD of education consultancy Rao Advisors LLC, Texas