Trump's 'bloodbath' and the context: this is how many media have manipulated

One of the most common methods by which some journalists manipulate certain statements is to take them out of context.

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All journalists know that context is important when assessing the meaning of a word, but sometimes this is forgotten in the interest of attacking a person. In the last few hours, a multitude of media outlets have claimed that Trump has said that there will be a "bloodbath" if he loses the election, as if he were issuing a threat. Let's look at some examples:

• The New Yorks Times: "Trump Says Some Migrants Are ‘Not People’ and Predicts a ‘Blood Bath’ if He Loses".
• The Telegraph: "Trump warns of ‘bloodbath’ if he loses presidential election".
• Eldiario.es: "Trump augura un “baño de sangre” si pierde las elecciones de noviembre".
• Antena 3: "Donald Trump augura un "baño de sangre" en Estados Unidos si pierde las elecciones".
• Telecinco: "Donald Trump pronostica un "baño de sangre" en EEUU si pierde los comicios de noviembre ante Joe Biden".

Has Donald Trump really made that threat? To verify this it is necessary to review that speech. Trump uttered that word at a public event in Ohio. You can see the full video here. The word in question appears at point 29:56 of the video. He said it in the following sentence: "If I don't get elected it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole". You can see the video here (I have inserted it so that it plays a little before those words, to review the context):

As you can see, Trump was talking about the automobile industry. In that context, the word "bloodbath" takes on a different meaning than what many media outlets have wanted to convey. The Cambridge University Dictionary indicates this second meaning for the word "bloodbath":

a very bad situation in which a lot of harm or damage is caused:
The government seem determined to continue in the face of an electoral bloodbath.
We know there will be a bloodbath of job cuts in January and February.

So, in that context, "bloodbath" would be equivalent to disaster. In fact, it is a word commonly used by the economic press to refer to sharp falls in the stock market:

• Financial Times: "Stellantis warns of EV ‘bloodbath’ as Ford cuts F-150 Lightning output".
• The Economic Times: "Bloodbath on D-St! Sensex crashes 900 pts; investors lose Rs 5.8 lakh crore".
• Markets Insider: "The market 'bloodbath is likely to continue' with investors set to lose tens of trillions over next decade, Nouriel Roubini says".
• The Economic Times: "Bloodbath on D-Street! Sensex tanks 1,628 points. Top 5 factors behind today's market crash".

Media such as CNN, El Mundo and Ok Diario have published the context when quoting those statements, which gives them a very different meaning than what other media outlets, that do not cite the context, try to give them.

Of course, one can agree or not with Trump (personally, there are things I like about his approaches and there are others, like his recent statements on abortion, which I don't like at all), but disagreeing with him does not justify the act of manipulating his words, and even less so when that manipulation is done by a media outlet. The only thing that is achieved with these bad practices is an increasing loss of credibility of the media.

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Photo: AP Foto.