It seems in this presidential election cycle, fact-checking is at the forefront of traditional media’s digital and social campaigns. These short blurbs detailing what is ‘true’ and ‘false’ are easily sharable and bring traffic to the news sites.
The New York Times, NBC News, NPR, USA Today are just a few sources that published fact checks after the debate.
Although headlines said Trump hammered Clinton on her emails, the fact checks don’t reflect that.
The headlines show that people respond to rhetoric and not facts. NYT fact check only had two facts on Hillary’s emails, and the ‘facts’ from the debate weren’t new information presented.
NPR presented a full transcript with fact checks throughout. In the debate, Clinton’s emails were initially brought up by Trump and then Clinton was questioned by Martha Raddatz, one of the moderators, and Clinton took full responsibility and apologized immediately, something Trump has not done for any allegations.
Trump keeps calling Clinton a liar because of her emails, but he doesn’t present new information while she is presenting facts directly on her website. If rhetoric includes the situation, she is combating the untrustworthy argument by trying to make Trump look not only aggressive and dangerous, but also dishonest.
Trump then did not allow Clinton to respond, acting aggressive and although the emails were discussed briefly, the loud outbursts allowed for her emails to remain in the headlines. This works well for Trump because the email controversy is running out of newsworthiness and is subject to fall out of the public eye.
Trump should drop the email controversy and, to continue with the untrustworthy argument, present new examples of her untrustworthiness. Hillary is (arguably) using the best defense to email rhetoric by apologizing and trying to move on. However, Clinton’s defense doesn’t help moderate voters. Trying to move away from the emails could look like she is avoiding the subject, with her back and forth with Trump, but Trump’s aggressive position and interruptions looks more as if she was avoiding him and trying to follow Anderson Cooper’s instructions to take questions from the audience while trying to listen to the people. Trump looks aggressive and stuck on a single issue that has already been discussed and investigated extensively.
This email controversy looming behind Clinton seems pretty familiar, but I don’t recall what it reminds me of…
Trump has definitely overused the email controversy, especially since he’s added almost no new information to his case. However, these sound bites are clearly resonating with his committed voter base. If Trump is trying to hone in and solidify this base, then I think this is actually an effective strategy for him to employ. It’s kind of like a comedian making jokes about airplane food or the lines at the DMV… It’s not cutting edge, but it gets the job done. And if the job is to take shots at “Crooked Hillary,” then I think these sound bites are still fairly effective, although overused.