or there is CNN and MSNBC
I hear this from a lot of conservatives. Do you really think there’s an anti-Trump bias here, or is this just a counterpoint to the left of FOX? All the standard leftist media boogeymen (CNN, MSNBC, NPR, NYT) seem pretty pro-Trump to me so far, just pro-Trump by omission rather than pro-Trump by commission like FOX. That’s the view from the left at least.
Just a quick look at CNN.com has several headlines that are embarrassing for Trump. Usually, I see far more. It’s often a mixture of news and opinion articles that are disparaging towards him. I’ll be honest, a part of me enjoys it and fills me with a proud “I told ya so” attitude towards the Republican Party of which I am a former member. On the other hand, I can’t help but feel like it’s excessive to the point that I find some of it hard to believe–like such extreme saturation of negative Trump news that it’s hard to know what’s really true and what is actually just people trying desperately to bring him down.
For the record, I still hope he does get brought down. I feel he is tremendously dangerous to our country and the world.
I dunno. The “news” (such as it is) today involves people having Twitter feuds and publishing tell-all books. As that goes, the CNN front page I’m looking at seems to cover those bases pretty neutrally, albeit with the salacious tabloid fever that flavors all news these days.
Now, I’m with you that the facts are anti-Trump. So if you report the facts objectively, you’re going to sound anti-Trump. But you’d have to pretty much ignore his tweets and random blatherings and focus on policies, and I’m afraid no media outlet’s going to do that in the clickbait economy.
I guess we may also be measuring bias differently too. If you’re upset the media hops over the latest Twitter gaffe at the expense of everything else, I’m with you. And Trump’s manner of Twitter usage pretty much ensures that that salacious gossip column style coverage is going to be anti-Trump because you’d have to be a crazy person (or FOX contributor) to support his tweets.
But as far as the real substantial news goes, I see CNN doing a lot of “our staff stenographer just wrote down what they said at the press conference without analysis”, which is pretty pro-Trump (also lazy). Or consulting “experts on both sides” which allows people to offer exercises in framing the issues rather than analysis of the issues (also lazy). And as the facts are anti-Trump, dropping any number of substantial stories skews the coverage in his favor.
So is media shallow? Hell yes. Lazy? Vapid? No argument. Liberal? Not so much.