Jon Sopel. A rebuke.

He is shooting at his own team.

One of my sons gave me a Jon Sopel paperback for my birthday this year.

If only they didn’t speak English. (Notes from Trump’s America)., BBC Books.

John Sopel is based in Washington DC and is a brilliant and renowned journalist. His book initially made me recall Alister Cook’s ‘Letters from America,’ which I listened to every Friday night on BBC Radio 4 while driving home twenty years ago.

I enjoyed his book, it’s easy to sit and read about the USA and feel smug and superior when Sopel presents such a withering impression of Trump’s USA, but I found myself suddenly spurred into disagreement towards the end. In regard to journalists, he said, ‘It isn’t our job to be the opposition.’ I vehemently disagree!

If educated people with power to communicate with the majority of people do not stand in opposition to evils and corruptions perpetrated by those in power, their role is pointless. It is not good enough to provide verifiable facts and leave the public to decide who is right and wrong. Many of us don’t have the time to absorb the educated nuances and suggestions put forwards as clever writing. There are many who simply accept first and last statements from authority figures, then believe and repeat them. Trumpworld knows this and uses it to great effect.

Like it or not, journalists must be part of the resistance to tyranny. They must take a side or be despised. It is not (in my opinion) the role of journalist to report news. It is their job to report news responsibly. It isn’t enough to be objective and write ‘it was alleged’ or to suggest misbehaviour, especially when it is as clear as day what the facts are. At some point benefit of the doubt must expire. They must say it as it truly is because those who oppose the free press are flooding the same space with lies. It appears by being even handed honest journalists are being defeated with their own rules. Those of us who lived with violence and fought evil know one cannot go to a gun fight with a nice phrase and a cake. You have to get mean to defeat meanness.

I get annoyed by writers whose superior eloquence leaves me searching for true meaning. Veiled in allegory most of it goes over reader’s heads. Journalists need to be less elevated and get blunter if they are to convince a majority of people they know what they are talking about. There is a tendency to smile knowingly and treat their readers like foolish children. It’s the same smile they project at Trump when he insults them. Most people can’t read between the lines!

One media group present one exaggerated story, while another present the opposite. In the middle is the silent majority trying to make sense of it all. So come on Jon! Don’t tell us you are not the opposition. Where Trump and Putin are concerned you should be the opposition. You cannot sit on the fence when wars of choice are perpetrated, when people are incarcerated without trial, where criminals are pardoned and soldiers are sent to die for a man’s ego. It’s not good enough to be smug, keep well-paid jobs and publish well intentioned reports.

It’s not good enough, because you could do better. You could make a difference if you truly had the courage to stand on principle and do what is right. Author Bill Bryson said, ‘Jon Sopel may be the sanest man in America.’ If survival in a dangerous world is a measure of sanity Bryson is absolutely correct. It is true Sopel is very sane and talks a lot of sense, but he needs to work out whose side he is on. I respect those who collate verifiable facts and present them objectively for their ability to survive, but that isn’t investigative or dynamic journalism. Look at Russia and ask if sanity and facts helped the nation. Podcaster and activist, Alexander Navalny was murdered in prison for having opinions, he was too little, too late. The free press in Russia is dead, and it is dying in the USA as leading journalists are threatened and suppressed. Given time Trump will use the same tactics as Putin and imprison or kill those who have mocked him. If you have a second passport make sure it is in your pocket and ready to go.

At the end of his book on page 342, I felt my blood boil as Sopel criticised US Journalist, Don Lemon for using his platform to attack a corrupt, criminal, racist, rapist who is the President of the USA. Lemon lost his job and had false charges mounted against him in the courts. These charges were eventually dismissed, but at great cost. The process of mounting false charges is punishing in its own right.

In his book, Sopel presents a superior and amused image when discussing Trump’s USA and also in his podcast with Emily Maitlis. Emily described Jon’s book as ‘An entertaining stock take of how we got here.’

At first I found the book enjoyable and entertaining but by the time I finished I was left disappointed by the image received of modern journalists in Washington. Comfortable life, big bucks, big audience, and no strong moral position. They just report the facts and let us make up our minds. Blahhh!

It’s easy enough for Sopel to criticise Don Lemon when he (Jon) can run back to the UK if the going gets tough. Don Lemon is in ‘the hood.’ Jimmy Kimmel and Steven Colbert are also in the hood. They have put themselves on the line and used their public voices to resist Trump. They took risks! Humour and satire are effective defences against Trumpworld. In a world where rule of law has become meaningless; where elections are quickly becoming a joke, where wealthy politicians live in fear of threats of being ‘whacked!’ journalists need to take a more partisan and moral stance. Sopel admits on page 343 trust in journalists is in decline but fails to address his own failings. He’s too comfortable in Trumpworld, he is white, straight and English and backed by the BBC.

I have great admiration for Jon, his interesting and amusing political writing is something I aspire to mimic at times, but if he and his ilk think they can continue to sit on the fence and criticise those with the courage to speak out and fight tyranny, he has lost sight of what makes people noble and decent. He is shooting at his own team.

I don’t want to see journalists asking carefully prepared questions, only to get browbeaten into submission. I want to see the questions pursued, the insult reposted and a more direct and partisan approach to those who would imprison or kill the remaining free press for opposing them.

Every day a journalist remains ‘objective’ is a day closer to a concentration camp.

I write to fight!

Robin Horsfall

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