President Donald Trump has “turned words into weapons” — and journalists are providing additional ammunition.
That’s according to Trump critic George Lakoff, a renowned linguist and professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley. Lakoff wrote in a recent article for the Guardian that the president manipulates language to control the public narrative. The press, he said, functions as a sort of “marketing agency for [Trump’s] ideas” by repeating his claims, even when trying to fact-check or debunk his statements.
“By faithfully transmitting Trump’s words and ideas, the press helps him to attack, and thereby control, the press itself,” he writes.
As the guest on this week’s Reliable Sources podcast, Lakoff spoke to Brian Stelter about Trump’s linguistic frames, what the press should do differently, and why journalists need to tackle Trump’s words like a “truth sandwich.”
该访谈文字内容因表述简洁的需要做了编辑。如需获得完整内容，请收听来自原播客的录音文件（时长27分钟）：
2018年6月15日首播于CNN Money（点击“阅读原文”可直达原英文网页）