Covering
politics with a sense of fairness requires journalists to acknowledge that
politicians, even the ones they despise, at some point, somewhere, on some
matter, do something right.
Not so President
Donald Trump. Journalists simply cannot admit that anything Trump has done or
is doing or thinking is good for the United States because it will reflect
positively on him. That they just won’t allow.
Since he
announced his run for president, Trump has drawn more negative press than any
presidential candidate or president in history. Trump’s staunchest enemies—liberals
and Never-Trumpers alike—will argue that this is the truly objective, fair, and
accurate read on the present condition.
How they
can say this with straight faces escapes us.
Month after month going back to the start of his campaign, without interruption, his coverage on evening newscasts has hovered around 90% negative. How do the anti-Trumpers see this? Some like CNN’s Don Lemon dismiss the numbers. “Is that a scientific mathematical fact, 90%?” Most don’t care either way.
Trump
haters will argue that even that 90% negative coverage is too kind, and
demonstrates some sort of weakness, failing to provide the fullest measure of
#Resistance.
To
acknowledge that Trump got two outstanding Supreme Court justices confirmed, or
succeeded in passing a massive corporate tax bill that has generated massive
employment numbers, or has taken millions off the welfare rolls, or virtually
destroyed ISIS, or wiped out thousands of oppressive regulations, or—really,
should we continue?—isn’t providing news. It’s enabling an oppressive fathead.
Every new
and successful Trump policy concomitantly exposes the failures of his
processor. Former President Barack Obama can only watch in what should be shame
as his policy prescriptions on the economy, on foreign policy, on regulation,
and pretty much everything else are proven to have been failures.
But this
man has no shame, and neither do his acolytes. Instead, he hits the road giving
his pathetic, “Look at me! Look at me! I did it, yes I did!” speeches to steal
the credit. And reporters trip over their own camera cords running to give him
coverage.
Look at
the spin of Trump’s coverage on the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening newscasts since
July 29, 2016, when the conventions ended, the candidates had been nominated,
and the general election contest was officially running.
There
were 95 positive statements about Trump. There were 726 negative ones too.
(That computes to 88% negative spin, Mr. Lemon.) Throughout the entire general
election campaign the tone was remarkably steady: In August, the spin was 87%
negative; in September it was 94% negative; and in October it was 90% negative.
Statisticians call this the “mean” … and it was certainly mean.
Oh, but
it gets better. Now look at the content flavoring the empirical data.
Describing it as merely “negative” does not do it justice.
“Donald
Trump spoke off the cuff, and took his campaign off the rails,” sputtered CBS
anchor Scott Pelley to describe ignorant Trump. “Trump, diving head-first into
the politics of fear,” claimed NBC reporter Hallie Jackson to describe
unethical Trump. His rallies were “swallowed by fear, anger, and
misinformation.”
ABC’s Tom
Llamas quoted New York Times
columnist Thomas Friedman on screen to describe Trump as a threat to mankind.
“Trump knows what he’s doing, and it is so dangerous in today’s world!” (Llamas
conveniently skipped the part in that column where Friedman suggested Trump’s
tone would trigger an assassination.)
That was
during the campaign. Now look at the numbers for President Trump, beginning on
Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2017. There is that initial 1-2 month stretch known
traditionally as the “honeymoon” period when the new president is given the
time to get his presidential sea legs.
Remember
Obama’s honeymoon period? It could not have started on a happier note.
ABC’s
Bill Weir oozed “never have so many people shivered so long with such joy. From
above, even the seagulls must have been awed by the blanket of humanity.” CNN
anchor Carol Costello was thrilled. “It was a giant lovefest. … When Barack
Obama started to speak, I was right in the middle of the crowd. People were
crying, they were laughing, they were cheering. Suddenly someone would just
come up and hug you. It was just amazing.”
NBC’s
Andrea Mitchell gushed, “What a day it was. It may take days or years to really
absorb the significance of what happened to America today . … The mass
flickering of cell phone cameras on the Mall seemed like stars shining back at
him.”
But for
Trump? On his first night in office, the networks were brutal on his inaugural
address.
NBC’s
Chuck Todd denounced it. “I thought it was shockingly divisive for an inaugural.
… He insulted—at points, insulted almost every living president that was
there to witness his inaugural, which, to me, was so stunning!”
Over on
ABC, Terry Moran was sniffing for hate when Trump used the term “America
First,” saying “it carries with it overtones from the 1930s when an
anti-Semitic movement saying, ‘We don’t want to get involved in Europe’s war.
It’s the Jews’ fault in Germany!’ Charles Lindbergh led them. It is a term, as
he defined it his way, but the words themselves carry very ugly echoes in our
history.”
New York Times
correspondent David Sanger mourned that Trump could have somehow used the
slogan “America First” in “the most inclusive way,” but “instead, he chose a
dark, hardline alternative, one that appeared to herald the end of a 70-year
American experiment to shape a world that would be eager to follow its lead.”
There
would be no honeymoon.
During the
final 12 days of January, the traditional “honeymoon” spin was 85% negative,
unheard of in modern politics. In both February and March, it hit 91% negative.
In April,
the president got a minimal surge of positive clips after he ordered a military
strike against Syria for using chemical weapons on its own civilians. That
generated a massive change in coverage. That month, the spin dove downward … to
82% negative.
It has been thus for every single month of Trump’s presidency.
This article was drawn with permission from L. Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham’s book, “Unmasked: Big Media’s War Against Trump.”
Source material can be found at this site.
