The mainstream media has totally failed to live up to the challenge of covering Donald Trump | The media, led by The New York Times, keeps downplaying Trump’s scandals and lies, making him look normal.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/09/the-mainstream-media-has-totally-failed-to-live-up-to-the-challenge-of-covering-donald-trump/
38 Comments
I am reminded of a Hunter S. Thompson quote which I feel is relevant…
> “I don’t get any satisfaction out of the old traditional journalist’s view: I just covered the story. I just gave it a balanced view. Objective journalism is one of the main reasons American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long. You can’t be objective about Nixon.”
If we replace Nixon with Trump, that quote works just as well now as it did back then.
They have been normalizing his behavior for far too long, treating him like a normal candidate instead of classifying him as a traitorous wannabe dictator who has no business leading this country, as they should be.
Problem is they’re complicit because they’re owned by billionaires. The media, just like everything else in this country, is corporatized and has been designed to act in this manner specifically.
Trump has been their Golden Goose for over 8 years now. They made him their preferred candidate in 2016 and got him elected through unbalanced coverage and propagating Republican Lies. They raked in profits beyond their wildest dreams for four years, then backed off their support in 2020 and watched their profits fall off a cliff. They have spent the last year rehabilitating his regime and normalizing his crimes. They will not willingly allow him to lose this time.
If he wins the election, the mainstream media will (again) be the primary cause of it. I’m expecting a not-super-great September jobs report. This is not a bad thing, btw. It’s an indication that inflation has cooled (based on Biden-Harris policy) and that we can now *finally* get a rate cut. I don’t expect that context from places like NYT. Instead, I FULLY expect them to doomer the shit out of the report and remind people that Trump is a BuSsiNessMaN. When the rate cut comes, I expect they will frame it as the Fed panicking (rather than saying inflation abatement measures of the Administration Harris is in actually worked).
Similarly, I think the NYS fraud sentencing will probably be probation, a fine, and maybe some period of home incarceration for a few months (on probably a suspended sentence). Rather than correctly noting **HOLY FUCK A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE HAS JUST BEEN SENTENCED FOR A FELONY HE COMMITTED RELATED TO AN ELECTION**, I expect that they will minimize it and suggest “Trump has gotten off once again… he’s a crafty one!”
Likewise, if Trump only utters 2-3 racial epithets in the debate (rather than the expected half dozen), we’ll be told he’s pivoted and behaving in a more statesmanlike fashion. If Harris smiles too much and/or not enough, her performance will be framed as a disaster.
That’s what we’re up against. If Harris’s inertia continues, she wins. The “HorseRace!” media will not abide by that. So we can COMFORTABLY expect all the bullshit that’s about to come.
I shit you not, this headline was on the front page of an area newspaper Sunday:
> Trump promises universal IVF coverage; suggests he’ll vote to repeal Florida’s 6-week abortion ban
My newsdudes. I’ve seen the reporting on both of these, and neither statement is true. The first is only true in that he’ll bloviate anything he thinks will help him.
I call it the Three Stooges defense, which hopefully Simpson’s fans will understand.
But the man tried to overturn a fair and legal election, no one should be giving him the damn time of day.
NY Times is hot garbage now. And this is how this is bad for Kamala Harris.
He’s essentially a human Rorschach test. He gets up there and babbles nonsense and blantantly wrong ramblings, and then the media “interprets” what he supposedly meant. It should not be controversial to rebuke completely unacceptable accusations like, “Biden and Harris KILLED those servicemen! They might as well have been holding the guns!”
I guess the media is now mistrusted across the political divide now. For different reasons, but the bottom line is now they are just not trustworthy in so many instances. What a sad state of affairs.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/09/the-mainstream-media-has-totally-failed-to-live-up-to-the-challenge-of-covering-donald-trump/) reduced by 92%. (I’m a bot)
*****
> Ever since Donald Trump appeared on the scene, the mainstream media has struggled with how to deal with him as a candidate.
> The paper then followed up with another story about how Trump "Returns to the politics of forever wars," as if that was the story instead of how the Trump campaign broke the law prohibiting using the hallowed ground for political purposes.
> Our current reporting – or at least our current reporters – aren't up to the task of covering Trump.
*****
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It is f’n insane to me that we had almost three solid weeks of “Biden must drop out!!!11!!!” coverage while Trump being found guilty of 34 felonies lasted for three days max.
[This article](https://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/02/les-moonves-trump-cbs-220001) from 2016 has been making the rounds in some comment threads lately and it just reinforces what so many have been feeling/saying since the dude came down that escalator in 2015. His is their ~~Golden~~ Orange Goose
Imagine what they would say about Harris if she had 5 kids by three different husbands and cheated on them all!
Democrats knew MSM is cooked for Gen-Z and Alpha which is why they had a whole area designated for content creators. They don’t watch CNN or MSNBC, hell they don’t even watch Frontline on PBS (which is a shame)
In 2018 I called the New York Times to cancel my subscription. It felt so right. No regrets.
Among other fun things liberals and progressives can do: delete your Twitter account, and boycott Tesla and Starlink.
During the presidential debate, nobody used the words criminal, rapist, or felon. Instead, everyone was talking about Biden’s age. That’s really hard for me to understand.
Donald Trump has become so normalized that seemingly nobody cares about all of that.
Maggie Haberman led this charge most of all. She shouldn’t have been able to hold a job after her bullshit.
Normalcy is bad for business.
This is why I have cancelled most newspaper subscriptions.
They aren’t interested in holding him accountable; they’re interested in clicks and subscriptions.
The media has been doing their jobs correctly — making money for some billionaires so they can sit fat on their piles of land and treasure.
The People need a source of news that is ethically bound to The People.
Also, we need to destroy the current media structure and hold them legally accountable for this malicious behavior.
Vote, encourage others to vote. Join a union and pay your dues. Encourage others to join. Prepare to protest and strike.
Let’s do like other countries do, hit the streets, stop work, and take back our power and money from billionaires. It’s time for all of us to take action.
The Trump clown show drives media engagement.
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/551210-tv-news-ratings-online-readership-plunge-during-bidens-first-100-days/amp/
The media manufactured, legitimized, and continues to normalize Trump by preposterously reinterpreting his words and actions in a way that he never intends and is incapable of expressing.
The Trump that exists in reality is not the Trump that the media created and covers. It’s maddening. It feels like living in Alice in Wonderland.
It’s called Desensitization & is part of the Authoritarian playbook…
http://www.WeAreNotSpecial.org
Please let me know if you have any suggestions or want to help out with this project. Thanks!
I’ve been very disappointed in the NY Times
I have to agree with Trump on the mainstream media needs him.
Crazy how the news only cares about their ratings, when I would think it would be the responsibility to have its watchers informed of current events in a bipartisan matter! It’s almost like they are rooting for the downfall of democracy.
Whereas Biden misspeaking somehow made him unfit to be President, according to the same media
They keep saying both sides are the same. NO NO NO, I have been watching the Republican Party LOSE THERE BASIC BELIEFS FOR YEARS. They are now a CULT OF TRUMP, LIES AND DISINFORMATION IS ALL THEY OFFER
Behind the Bastard has a 2 part episode on this, mostly about how the liberal media, in their effort to be seen as ‘objective’ let fascism grow. Same exact shit is going on now. Fascists love killing liberal journalists yet liberal journalists don’t fight hard against them…
The media basically always recontextualizes what Trump says to make it sound sane. Like he’ll literally go on stage and ramble for 2 hours, and the headlines are “Trump has strong anti immigration policy” or some shit.
He’s clearly a domestic threat. Quit covering him like a normal candidate. They still haven’t found all the documents he took. Putin definitely has something by now.
Wall Street needs a bailout. They only get it with trump victory….
The billionaire class that owns the media desperately wants Trump because of tax cuts and anti-Union policies. The newsroom staffs desperately want Trump because he’s good copy, and talking about him means they don’t have to work hard. This is not a good combination.
New York times has lost its vision and honestly I have no idea which way they’re going. I’d like to ask ask them, what happened to democracy dies in darkness? How can they have that slogan on their building on 8th avenue in New York and close their eyes to what Trump is doing.
Duh. Billionaires take care of their own. If they want more tax cuts, more public funds to waste, less employee protection . Yes they want to NOT make him out to be the trash he is.
Being a felon is not easy
Donald is without a doubt the most corrupt President America has ever had.
[https://thebastionusa.com/donald-trump-corruption-and-abuse-of-power](https://thebastionusa.com/donald-trump-corruption-and-abuse-of-power)
The most infuriating thing is when he tells the most ridiculous lie about democrats “aborting babies after 9 months”. Nobody calls him out on that ridiculous claim, ever.
“So, who is better for the American economy: the lying, cheating, tax fraud, rapist, convicted felon, man-child who wants to overthrow the government and imprison and kill his enemies, or the other person, who studied political science and economics, earned a law degree, worked as a deputy DA in CA, served in Congress, and was Attorney General of California”. This would be accurate and true, but the press is framing this as a normal election.