This week’s allegations from BuzzFeed on Trump’s ties with Russia represent yet another case of a growing tendency within liberal media: a concerted attempt to smear Trump using the same tactics as the man himself. 

“BuzzFeed is suffering from confirmation bias, a need for evidence that supports their pro-Democrat, anti-Trump stance.”

Reacting to the election of someone as divisive as Trump can be difficult. The sombre mood in the Union on election night was indicative of the shock and dismay felt by many students. However, it is important that Cambridge and other left-of-centre hubs around the US and the UK leave aside the knee-jerk moral outrage of election night, and rationally assess what happened. A panel discussion organised by former MP Julian Huppert on Trump’s Inauguration Day, entitled ‘How did we get here and what does it mean?’ signals Cambridge’s first step in this direction.

Unfortunately, liberal media outlets such as BuzzFeed seem to be moving in the opposite direction. Reading the infamous article, their attempts to dress up their dissemination of fake news as a noble venture to allow Americans to “make up their own minds” seem laughable at best. A note in the article, asking readers to send tips on these allegations to trumpstories@buzzfeed.com, suggests BuzzFeed is suffering from ‘confirmation bias’, a need for evidence that supports their pro-Democrat, anti-Trump stance. As the title of the email address suggests, they want stories, not facts.

The worst thing about BuzzFeed’s poorly disguised engagement in ‘fake news’ is the hypocrisy behind it. Only two months ago, BuzzFeed was part of a trend within established media outlets that reported on the connection between ‘fake news’ and Trump’s election victory. BuzzFeed published articles on ‘hyperpartisan’ Facebook pages, Macedonian fake news websites and an article on the overtly “pro-Donald Trump” nature of fake election stories.

Ben Smith, BuzzFeed’s Editor-in-Chief, followed up the publication of the dossier with a statement that defended the publication as an act of journalistic transparency in a hyper-partisan era. However, this goes against BuzzFeed’s previous, and more ethical, tendency of simply highlighting the lack of fact-based reporting in certain areas of the Internet. Furthermore, in spite of Smith’s moral justifications, there is a clear trend that BuzzFeed’s actions fall within.

Shifting between criticising those who pass off unsubstantiated allegations as ‘news’ and then passing off this very behaviour as ‘news’ has been observed throughout pro-Democrat media outlets in the few months following Trump’s election. The most notorious example was the Washington Post article on Russia’s cyber-hacking of the American election that spread like wildfire, as CNN and other pro-Democrat news outlets jumped on these allegations to publish their own material against Trump.

“Trump was able to portray himself as an outsider, a victim, and thus all the more righteous.”

A consequence of these high-on-sensation, low-on-fact controversies was that it spawned the creation of other articles based on unverified allegations. The Post article was used as a source for other articles of an anti-Russia slant which in turn created more stories, all sensationalist and all insinuating the credibility of their allegations by citing previous allegations. BuzzFeed’s actions therefore have a clear precedent.

Granted, BuzzFeed does not pass off the allegations as truths distinguishing it from often pro-Trump websites claiming that Bill Clinton is a child rapist.

Circulating allegations about Trump only feeds into the rhetoric that allowed him to win in the first place. By instigating the belief among millions of Americans that the political system was ‘rigged’ in favour of the Democrats, Trump was able to portray himself as an outsider, a victim, and thus all the more righteous in his campaign to ‘Make America Great Again’. With the help of pro-Trump outlets such as Fox News, he was able to react to any negative coverage from pro-Democrat outlets such as CNN resorting to this rhetoric of victimhood. After one of Alec Baldwin’s hilarious sketches of Trump in Saturday Night Live, Trump tweeted the next morning: “totally one-sided, biased show – nothing funny at all. Equal time for us?”

There is thus a very serious consequence in the contagious spread of allegation-based reporting within the liberal media. The rhetoric of victimhood has become a self-fulfilling prophecy – one that Trump has all too gladly accepted.

Former MI6 spy behind Trump dossier is Girton graduate

Trump’s first press conference since his election on Wednesday proves this. His response to a CNN reporter’s attempt to ask a question, “You are fake news”, was followed up by a tweet: “We had a great News conference at Trump Tower today. A couple of FAKE NEWS organisations were there but the people get what’s truly going on.” Notice how Fox News’ Sean Hannity reinforced the populism in Trump’s tweet by describing the press conference as “the single greatest beat down of the alt-left, abusively biased mainstream media in the history of our country.” Irrespective of CNN’s intentions, it is clear their involvement with BuzzFeed has only added fuel to the fire of Trump’s populist appeal.

By responding to post-truth politics with post-truth journalism, liberal media outlets such as BuzzFeed are not only contributing to the corrosion of journalistic responsibility. They are legitimizing the ‘Trump tirade’ on how the whole world is against him, an argument that augments Trump’s messianic appeal as a champion of the excluded in America