Donald Trump has only been president of the United States for about a month, but the way the media have covered the administration day and night it seems like he has been in office for seven years.
According to a new study, close to 90 percent of the media’s coverage of the Trump administration was negative and perhaps even downright “hostile.” If you compared this to the Obama administration’s first 30 or 100 days in office it would make you blush, right Chris Matthews or Andrea Mitchell?
The Media Research Center (MRC), a conservative media watchdog, released a report that found 88 percent of the media coverage from Inauguration Day to mid-February has been hostile. The report took a look at statements made by reporters, experts and average citizens, but excluded those of partisans.
Here is one example of the negative coverage:
“Instead of working to clarify or backtrack on President Trump’s false claims,” NBC’s Hallie Jackson scolded on the January 24 Nightly News, “today his press secretary instead tried to cement them.”
Researchers also noted that ABC, CBS and NBC spent 16 hours, or half, of its evening newscasts coverage to Trump and his team. This includes three hours on the president’s immigration executive order.
Here is what MRC further reported:
“The networks spent a total of 49 minutes on the confirmation battles surrounding Trump’s Cabinet picks, with Education Secretary Betsy Devos garnering the most airtime (17 minutes), followed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions (10 minutes) and failed Labor Secretary nominee Andrew Puzder (7 minutes). Combined, the networks spent less than one-tenth as much coverage (just over four minutes) on Senate Democrats’ calculated strategy of obstructing the confirmation process.
“Further highlighting the hostile tone of these newscasts, nearly an hour of coverage (56 minutes) was given over to anti-Trump protests on various topics, with nearly one-fifth (82 out of 442) of the Trump stories or briefs aired during these 30 days including at least some discussion of an anti-Trump protest.”
Now, if you take a look at past studies, you can find an immense contrast when compared to the coverage of Obama’s first year. According to the Pew Research Center (PRC), for example, just 20 percent of the coverage of President Obama’s first 100 days was negative. Overall, coverage was more positive for Obama than for George W. Bush or even Bill Clinton.
If the media’s coverage was neutral, unbiased and consistent then people would trust these anchors, reporters and hosts a lot more than they do now.
Here are just some embarrassing quotes from journalists for the last eight years pertaining to former President Obama, courtesy of NewsBusters.org:
Christine Amanpour:
“People from all over the world, frankly, say to me, here comes a President with a huge mandate, a huge reservoir of goodwill, huge promises to change, and, with all of that, his popularity is down. People don’t appreciate some of the amazing legislative agenda that he’s accomplished.”
Chris Matthews:
“This guy’s done everything right. He’s raised his family right. He’s fought his way all the way to the top of the Harvard Law Review, in a blind test becomes head of the Review, the top editor there. Everything he’s done is clean as a whistle. He’s never not only broken any law, he’s never done anything wrong. He’s the perfect father, the perfect husband, the perfect American. And all they do is trash the guy.”
AP reporter Charles Babington:
“Presidential campaigns have destroyed many bright and capable politicians. But there’s ample evidence that Obama is something special, a man who makes difficult tasks look easy, who seems to touch millions of diverse people with a message of hope that somehow doesn’t sound Pollyannaish.”
Lawrence O’Donnell:
“President Obama is the most noble man who has ever lived in the White House and he proved that again today….”
Charlie Rose:
“I want to raise two big issues about him that are fascinating to me and, Jon, all of you. How smart is he? What’s the sense of — is he one of our brightest presidents?”
These statements aren’t surprising, especially considering if you take a look at the WikiLeaks emails and the media’s behavior during the 2016 election. No wonder why trust and support in the mainstream media are at all-time lows.
Rabelrouser says
And the People in general still cant get it.
They dont realize that they are being mentally manipulated, propagandized; basically lied to and deined any form of objective truths.
“Stupid Americans” was the term used to describe them concerning the concept of their falling for ACA by its author.
Apparently