Thursday, November 8, 2018

On the 80th Anniversary of Fake News

As heard on November 5th, 2018 on The Audacity of Trivia, a weekly podcast featuring Chris Smith and Jon Ross. For more, visit audacityoftrivia.com

Eighty years ago last week Americans tuned in their radios to the Mercury Theatre on the Air and heard what we may call today fake news: bulletins about an alien invasion interrupt musical interludes, unknown objects crash through New Jersey farmstead rooftops, and a panic ensues, climaxing in a cloud of poisonous gas encircling NYC. The War Of the Worlds was foundational fictional fearmongering, a narrative inspired by the media and those who use it, to illicit response from an audience. 

Orson Welles probably knew what many modern critics like to point out today about War of the Worlds: that people believed what their radio told them, and the realism of the narrative was supported best by the lack of commercial interruptions, as if the situation had become dire enough that CBS was willing to forgo ad revenue. Secondarily, it was the minor details that convinced radio listeners aliens had indeed landed on our shores and were beginning an attack on our civilization.
People trusted the box that told them things in their home. People still trust the boxes that tell them things. 

Over this past week, as if in commemoration of the 80th anniversary of Orson Welles’ groundbreaking broadcast, President Trump has made loose and allegedly false accusations about those traveling in a caravan through Mexico, seeking to reach and cross the US border. The intention of purporting this narrative can’t be far from what Welles had in mind: to see to what extent the American people may not only assimilate and live out a belief, but to do so with a voice that assumes and garners respect from its audience, simply by its pretending to be alive. The card of no-commercial-interruptions, as if a situation of national panic were taking place, has long been played by some major media networks, and will surely be played tonight during the President’s rally in Florida.

But the locus of control is changing, Rosebud. I can as easily launch a fake alien invasion from my desktop as Welles could from behind a microphone in 1938. The War of the Worlds President Trump waged last week was a shameless attempt at rallying what is left of the Republican base prior to the midterm elections. Unlike Orson Welles, who used fake aliens, Trump used real people with real problems. Today, in this midterm election which has become no less than a war of worlds, human dignity appears to be the loser.