After Witnessing the Media’s Coverage of the Johnny Depp Defamation Trial 56% of Americans do not Trust the Mainstream Media to Tell Them the Truth.
The biggest loser of the trial wasn't Amber Heard but the mainstream media.
Prior to the trial, just 34% of Americans did not trust newspapers, television, and radio news reporting - that number has jumped to 56% according to our latest polling.
For years most Americans dutifully believed Amber Heard’s claims that her ex-husband physically and sexually abused her throughout their short marriage. Claims to the contrary were suppressed and censored by big tech and the mainstream media. When Johnny Depp hired Adam Waldman to share evidence that contradicted Amber’s claims, Twitter suspended his account without warning or comment1 and the lawyer was maligned as a misogynistic enabler. Depp’s career was over and the matter was settled as far as big-tech and the media were concerned. But their ability to shape the ‘narrative’ was about to be upended by a Virginia Circuit Court Judge named Penney. The 57-year-old judge decided to allow the American people to watch the trial live on YouTube - and millions watched.
Over the course of six weeks, viewers were forced to reconcile what the evidence and testimony were revealing compared to the ‘narrative’ that the mainstream media was selling. Whether they were watching the wall-to-wall coverage or consuming clips on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, or YouTube it was clear to almost everyone that Amber Heard was lying. Regardless of their political affiliation, race, gender, or sexual orientation Americans were forced to admit to themselves that the mainstream media had been lying to them for years.
Americans were fixated as they listened to Amber describe the brutal attacks she suffered at the hands of her violent ex-husband. They watched as Amber explained in explicit, excruciating detail how Johnny Depp would pound his fist, studded with sharp rings, into her face over and over again. But when the lawyers presented pictures of her injuries something didn’t add up. Where were the cuts? Where were the bruises? Survivors of domestic violence were perhaps the most outspoken on social media calling Amber’s ‘injuries’ nothing more than blemishes or pimples - certainly not the vicious attack she described under oath.
Despite these contradictions, the media continued to report the ‘narrative’ seemingly unaware that their readers were watching the trial and had just as much or more information than they did. NPR reported Amber’s claims that Johnny had pounded his fist into her face over and over like a meat tenderizer suggesting that the pictures presented to the jury showed her “swollen face”. NPR was under the impression that their listeners didn’t see the pictures they were describing. Their listeners were beginning to realize that they couldn’t trust the media to tell them the truth about this trial.
At the end of the day, the biggest impact of this defamation trial was to force every American to question the honesty of the mainstream media. Everyone who watched the trial while following the mainstream media’s coverage realizes that the press wasn’t ‘reporting’ but instead ‘narrating’. In the political realm, most of us are all too comfortable accepting ‘spin’ if it supports our party - in this case, both parties were predisposed to hate Johnny Depp and yet the evidence was clear and convincing that he was Amber Heard’s victim. The Depp vs. Heard trial was perhaps the first time in history that Americans were able to consume the facts at the same time as the media allowing them to realize just how unreliable and untrustworthy the press can be. Here are just a few of the media’s attempts to continue to gaslight their readers:
Politique Republic conducted a paid randomized poll of more than 1,000 Americans on Facebook asking about their trust and confidence in newspapers, television, and radio news reporting similar to a Gallup poll from 20212. 56% of respondents indicated they had either ‘not very much’ or ‘none at all’.
https://boundingintocomics.com/2021/05/04/twitter-upholds-ban-of-johnny-depp-lawyer-adam-waldman-based-on-alleged-violation-of-private-information-policy/
https://news.gallup.com/poll/355526/americans-trust-media-dips-second-lowest-record.aspx