Fox News: Influence Peddling?

Trump’s musing over his attending Fox/Google sponsored debate triggers an infantile response from Fox News infuriating the lead GOP Candidate. The mistake is to view Trumps response as a show of weakness, fear, or even childish; this would be wrong.

A key rule in strength-negotiating is this: your greatest strength rests in your ability to walk away from a deal that doesn’t support itself. The problem for Trump is that Fox and the rest of the Media control the narrative and are delighted to give Trump’s opposition a pre-paved high-road upon which to characterize his position in any way they choose – effectively handing Iowa to Cruz.

Is it a turning-point gamble for Trump if he’s truly a no-show? For his true-believers likely not. For those who are undecided, I estimate it to be 70/30, that it is and here’s why: Trump has managed the Media like no candidate before him and if the media shuts down his access then how does he message? On the other hand if Trump is successful in conjoining the public’s contempt for the Ruling Elite with the Media being its hand maiden then Fox could very well lose viewership faster than you can say Megyn Kelly. If that happens Fox News Headliners will turn on her just as quickly.

The smart move would be for Trump to show up and look to make a statement in the manner in which he defies the smug blustering and manipulative schemes of Fox News (and other media conglomerates) who feed upon the public’s anxieties as a mechanism for shaping opinions, tooling ad revenues and dispensing political division as if it were fact-based news; journalism indeed!

One thing is for certain; Trump owns the discussion whether he’s on or off the stage and if he plays it right (before the public) Fox News will be just another component of a system that the public is just beginning to repudiate and, it’s well deserved.

Curtis C. Greco, Founder

This entry was posted in Poli-Philos and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *