15
votes
US President Donald Trump and the attention economy
Link information
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- Title
- Opinion | Attention Is the Fuel of American Politics, and Trump Knows It
- Published
- Jan 26 2025
- Word count
- 1072 words
I feel like this Colombia thing is pretty good example of what's wrong in so many ways, and how the traditional behaviors are just walking into trump and co's advantage.
It's sunday evening in the US, Trump is deporting people, in the span of 4ish hours we have multiple reports of tarifs, refusals, concessions, and god knows what else. ALL of it, instantly reported, jumped all over by most of the modern media, filled with the righteous "told you so" outrage.
What actually happened, I have no fucking idea(well according to AP news looks like the admin is getting what they want). Why should I? It's a developing story that's ongoing and nothing "real" is likely to actually happen until tomorrow, and yet the entire media is in a shitstorm about this, and jumping to conclusions as well. Every time there's an update it's "OH LOOK WHO'S WRONG NOW!".
Trump and co win these games, basically every time. The companies encouraging this behavior win (get that engagement). The people who have to live with the consequences, lose. It's choose your own adventure reality. Just depends on when you stop reading.
It's breaking news and early reports are often a bit confusing. I'm not sure what you're expecting?
The Washington Post article seems reasonable. (I mean, the way it's reported, not the conflict, which is nuts.)
That's my point though. Breaking news/early reports used to be treated as such. Instead you've got reddit/twitter/even some traditional media outlets weighing on if trump "won" or "lost" the fight when it is still developing.
A great reason I'm here and not on reddit. This was a whirlwind to trace down. But ultimately I simply want to know the truth, not "who wins". Heck I'm barely team America these days despite never setting foot in another country.
It's a terrible shame that, like you said, the pace of news and the speed of information means that nobody is being forced into the slow journalism mindset we all used to live in.
On one hand, I get the race for attention. The engagement you get provides a fraction of the compensation that ad dollars used to provide. On top of that, the playing field is full and filled with noise.
The only thing you can do is to be there first, hyper target your segment of the audience and hope for some of those sweet diminishing returns to pay your single writer/editor/reporter/producer/editor.
On the other hand, it's like you said.
My interpretation of the truth of all the swirling reports comes down to
Colombia accepts deportees as is usual.
Trump sensationalize deportation of Colombians being deported by putting them in chains as they enter a loading dock of a plane.
Colombia cancels accepting the flight retroactively on account of treating their deportees as prisoners, dehumanizing them (now, are they criminals? Thar's still foggy. But something tells me they are at best non-violent offenders).
Trump retaliates with a 25% tariff on Colombia
Colombia sends its presidential plane to pickup the deportees
Colombia counters the 25% tariff with a 50% tariff
The sensationalism comes down to 1) Colombia "caved" by accepting the deportees, even though they often do this. Their issues were arguably human rights violations. And 2) all the tariffs that came from what was ultimately a knee jerk reaction. Even though both parties have achieved their goals.
I guess Trump "wins", but ultimately the people have lost. Because now Americans and Colombians are going to pay the price of Trump's racist power tripping.
Yeah afaict the US said "ok no manacles in the future" and Trump declared victory and everyone backed down back to the status quo for Colombia accepting deported citizens.
I think the author is on to something with this piece, it does appear that Trump pays a lot of attention to the type of media the public consumes. But I don't really understand what point the author is ultimately trying to make. That social media has a big impact on shaping public opinion? That's not exactly ground-breaking.
https://archive.is/EhtIQ