The Listening Post

The Donald Trump show

We look at the love-love relationship between the presidential hopeful and the media; plus, Germany’s refugee story.

As Donald Trump solidifies his lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, his unconventional campaigning style continues to be ratings rocket fuel for US TV news.

On the eve of Super Tuesday, a potentially pivotal day of voting in the race for the White House, the CEO of CBS, Leslie Moonves, said the Trump phenomenon “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”

Trump’s ascent has boosted ratings for US corporate news networks which are providing him with a disproportionate amount of airtime.

The anti-establishment candidate on the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders, hasn’t had nearly as much airtime – not only when compared with Donald Trump – but, crucially when compared with the Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton. Sanders has been in an uphill climb to get past the better known and supremely well-connected Clinton, on whom the US mainstream media have placed an aura of inevitability.

Talking us through the story are: Angelo Carusone, the executive president at Media Matters for America; Liza Featherstone, author of The Faux Feminism of Hillary Clinton; Ed Schultz, presenter at RT America; and Isaac Chotiner, a contributor for Slate.


Other media stories on our radar this week: Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has rejected a constitutional court decision to release jailed journalists, Can Dündar and Erdem Güll; Two Ugandan journalists have been arrested while reporting live from opposition leader, Kiiza Besigye’s home; and in China, the Sina Weibo account of a prominent businessman and Communist Party member, has been taken down after he publicly disagreed with his party’s views.


Refugees in Germany: The reporting and the reporters

There are over a million refugees residing in Germany, and for many news outlets, the refugees are not only a big news story, they are a new market.

Many organisations including public broadcasters, privately-run channels and widely read newspapers have created content aimed at this new audience – in Arabic. But not all the efforts have hit the mark – inspiring a small group of refugees to start reporting for themselves.

The Listening Post’s Flo Phillips travelled to Berlin and Cologne to take a closer look at how the refugee story is being reported by outlets tailoring content for the new arrivals, as well as the new arrivals themselves.


Finally, a few months back, the Bavarian arm of the German public broadcaster put out a cartoon brochure called ‘The Guide to Germany and its People’. The cartoons were designed to help explain to new arrivals from the Arab world a few useful things about German culture. Which inspired Lebanese-British online satirist, Karl Sharro, to produce his own guide for Westerners with some helpful hint about how they might like to behave in the Middle East. Our endnote merges these two guides, and without any more spoilers, we’ll see you next time at The Listening Post.