Is the media harder on Trump than his predecessors?
“I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally
deranged and everything else without hesitation,” says Carter.
It is easy to lay blame on the adversarial tone of presidential
media coverage on Trump’s frequent “fake news” attacks. But in reviewing news
stories that have dominated headlines lately, Carter may have a point that the
media coverage tends to focus heavily on Trump’s mental stability and is going
too far in scrutinizing him:
·
Thousands of psychiatrists and psychologists
signed a petition earlier this year that declared “Trump is mentally ill and
must be removed”.
·
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) introduced a
resolution in August suggesting that the president undergo a physical and
mental health exam.
·
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) has tweeted that Trump
is leading the country “on the path to World War II” and “the White House has
become an adult day care center”.
A recent poll shows that 46% of Americans believe the
media fabricates stories about Trump. It also found that 76% of Republicans and
20% of Democrats doubt the news media’s fairness and accuracy.
According to Philippe Reines, a former spokesman and advisor
to Hilary Clinton, the media can try harder to save its reputation. His suggestions
are:
·
Make it clearer when someone is presenting an
opinion.
·
Rein in reporters on social media.
·
Stop broadcasting the White House’s daily
briefing live (reporters should determine what news, if any, emerges from a
briefing, and report it, as they would for any evolving story).
·
If the briefings must be televised, identify who
is asking the question, giving viewers more information to access credibility.
·
Make it clearer which talking heads are
journalists, which are partisan hacks, and which are paid shills.
·
Do a better job of acknowledging and explaining
mistakes.
·
Call it like it is. Call a lie, a lie. Drop
euphemisms like “casual relationship with the truth”.
While I believe Trump and any president deserve close scrutiny
and fact-checking, I believe there is some truth to the talk that the media has
an anti-Trump agenda that is fueled by his constant “fake news” fixation.
Do you believe the media is intentionally harder on Trump
than on his predecessors or do you think the headlines basically write
themselves due to the strong emotion that Trump seems to inflict in people of all
levels of society?
This article presented an interesting topic. I feel that this topic has not been discussed in terms of other political candidates. It brings up the debate on whether social media is a positive or negative impact on political candidates. I agree that Trump has been the topic of many news articles/videos, just as I agree that presidents and any other political candidate should be held accountable for their words, opinions, and actions. I think that the news media is more willing to broadcast any shortcomings or mishaps on Trumps part. But also that, it is not smart for him to consistently provide his opinions on Twitter. Overall, this was a really interesting article to read. It made me think a lot about news outlets reporting habits. And I thought that the statistics you provided were extremely interesting as well.
ReplyDeleteI think that the media has a right to be harder on Trump. But I do not think they have been harder on him than any other President. Obama is a close second. They were literally talking about how he was wearing a tan suit for like a month and how it is unpresidential. I think that they are covering him a lot more because of his policy decisions and the way he is choosing to run his office. Interesting topic.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to me that former President Jimmy Carter said this about Trump considering that their political views don't align. Personally, I feel as if President Trump is heavily scrutinized by the media because he doesn't exactly make it hard for them to throw stones at him. He provides plenty of ammunition considering how the media has mostly a hate-hate relationship with Mr. Trump as well as his many shortcomings and faux pas as far as appearances and speeches. Great blog post!
ReplyDeleteI love everything about Reines' suggestions. Much of what he suggests would mitigate common misunderstandings people have about journalism. An Op-Ed, for example, is not the same as a hard news piece, but many people understand them as though they are the same, and I think this is a big source of peoples' complaints about partisan media bias. In the same vein, talking heads pose a huge problem to a network's integrity; the talking heads you see on television are not journalists at all, but entertainers paid to argue. This is problematic on its own, and if it were up to me, I would do away with that format all together. If that's impossible, though, identifying them is a good idea.
ReplyDeleteThe only point I would disagree with is his suggestion not to live-broadcast White House press briefings. The days of journalists being the sole, ivory-tower holders of information who decide what is newsworthy and what is not have disappeared with the Internet age. The public has the right to the full story, which is exactly why public broadcasters like C-SPAN and GPB broadcast legislative sessions. We can draw judgments for ourselves. However, I do like his idea to identify who is asking a question. More context is always a step in the right direction.
I read everyone's comment regarding this article because i was curious to see what everyone would say. I must agree, I do think the media has had more social media postings about trump. One, i think it's because social media has become MORE popular than it was in past elections AND because of Trumps behavior and the way he has handled things is what has also caused such uprising of people all over. If you check twitter fb ig etc there is hundreds of gifs memes etc regarding trump.
ReplyDeleteI find this article to be very compelling. It is really hard to figure out what is true and what is exaggerated in the news now more than ever. I do believe that Donald Trump's name appears a lot more in the news, I also believe that the media is intentionally harder on Trump. But is this without reason? It is hard to determine fact and fiction in the news, but when you jump on Donal Trump's twitter and see he is calling Hillary Clinton the biggest loser of all time, it starts to feel like he puts it on himself.
ReplyDelete