O’Keefe’s Video Unveil
James O’Keefe is a conservative undercover journalist for Project Veritas who recently leaked a video of two men who work for Clinton’s campaign. Robert Creamer and Scott Foval were discussing ways to provoke Trump supporters at his rallies. The big argument between Trump and Clinton surrogates is whether O’Keefe is a vicious liar out to get Clinton or if he unveiled what citizens deserve and should know about Clinton’s motives. Many people, including Clinton’s surrogate Christine Quinn, are arguing that O’Keefe falsely recorded and edited the undercover excerpts to purposely frame Creamer and Foval. She continuously questioned the validity of the video clip saying it is so easy for media specialists to “fudge” footage to depict any kind of meaning. The most regarded statement from the video was stated in an article by The Washington Free Beacon that said, “Honestly, it is not hard to get some of these assholes to pop off,” Foval said. “It’s a matter of showing up to want to get into the rally in a Planned Parenthood t-shirt or, you know, Trump is a Nazi, you could message to draw them out and draw them to punch you.” If in fact these actions are true regarding Clinton and her campaign team, it portrays an undignified character that voters are not going to want to support.
The Harsh Reality Of Social Media
Surrogates are often seen giving speeches defending their candidate regarding an undesirable action or statement the candidate may have done or said. The rhetoric of this generation of elections is so easily turned upside down because of our access to social media. Junkyard journalism has become a big part of political campaigns because of the malicious attacks into the already public lives of the candidates. Forty years ago, it would have taken weeks for this scandal to be seen across the country. Because of new technology, a voter can see the O’Keefe video on TV, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter in a matter of five minutes. Mobile technology has allowed easy on-the-go access to the most recent news updates and can inform citizens the instant a new article gets published. Influencer outreach has become a way for candidates to attack and defend themselves in social media by directly connecting with reporters, bloggers, and online activists one-on-one behind the scenes. Candidates can use the media for rapid response by journalists to push back against attacks and unfavorable coverage by gatekeepers to reach voters directly. Surrogates lately are spending just as much time defending their campaign against hateful claims as they are promoting the goals of the candidate.
This is an interesting angle about surrogate duties. I bet people often do not think about surrogates having to defend media attacks on their candidate. Do you think surrogates having to defend their candidate is a negative thing and waste of valuable time and energy? One solution is to let the campaign issue an official statement, and then move on, allowing the surrogates to channel their energy into other campaign matters. Or perhaps they should accept the role junkyard media plays, and hope that either facts debunking the claims surface, or hope people forget about the stories and move on. This would allow the surrogates to highlight the benefits and positives of the candidate. It would also be a step in not fueling the fire because the news would not keep running the story and a surrogate’s response to it, causing interest in the story to slowly die down.