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You know that we’re truly living in an Orwellian media superstate when articles like this appear in Newsweek. Newsweek reported that former president Donald Trump was “greeted by loud boos at South Carolina Football Game.”

Other news outlets were more reserved in their assessment claiming, “Sounds like a mixture of boos and cheers.” Although, maybe the viewer should view the footage for themselves and come to their own conclusion.

However, as pundits on social media, such as Sky News’ Rita Panahi, were quick to point out, the real response from people at the game was overwhelmingly supportive rather than denunciatory.

As the above video shows, not only were the majority of people cheering for Trump, but they also started chanting “U.S.A.” Such is Trump’s popularity and identification with patriotism.

Fact Checked

Sadly, incidents such as those above are not uncommon. George Orwell predicted this kind of situation though, in his dystopian novel 1984. At the penultimate point in the book, Orwell wrote:

The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right.

While Orwell was able to accurately predict many of the totalitarian tendencies we are witnessing in the world today, what he didn’t foresee was the democratisation of media. Through the means of technology, every citizen has the potential to be a journalist. That means that the state could not completely control information while keeping everyone else in the dark.

They were a large part of the reason why Donald Trump was elected president the first time around. But it’s as if the media elite have not learnt a thing. Because anyone with a camera phone — and that’s now basically everyone — can immediately do a ‘fact check’ and then publish what actually took place.

If the so-called ‘reporting’ over is anything to go by, then the mainstream media will once again be Trump’s greatest asset. People are sick of journalists demonstrating their own bias rather than presenting the facts. And the once mighty Newsweek is a classic case in point.

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Originally published in The Spectator Australia. Photo: Wikimedia Commons