Most of the media will sleep through the Biden years
Violent crime in U.S. cities is soaring. Inflation is spiking. The Mexican border crisis is deepening. Cyberattacks against key infrastructure are surging. Gas prices keep increasing.
Yet, a USA Today article recently proclaimed
No wonder Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald calls the legacy media “stenographers for the state.” Press coverage of Biden isn’t just soft. It’s the least critical of any president in the past three decades, according to a study by nonpartisan think tank Pew Research Center.
Researchers analyzed reporting from major TV networks and newspapers during the first 60 days of the five most recent presidencies and found that only 19% of Biden stories were negative. By comparison, 62% of stories on former President Donald Trump were negative.
A Boston Herald editorial admitted that “the press … is treating Biden with kid gloves.”
That’s not how journalism is supposed to work. The press is often described as the “Fourth Estate” because it serves as a final check on democracy beyond the three government branches.
Under Trump, Washington correspondents embraced that role, perhaps overzealously. Journalists complained that Trump's press briefings were “a venue for attacks on the media and a forum relatively light on information about what government is doing.” So, reporters doggedly searched for smoking guns to the point of abandoning principles and publishing conspiracy theories.
Now, these same journalists have stopped being adversarial. But why?
Biden is the least accessible president in a century, serving 64 days before holding a press conference. “Does that matter?” a USA Today headline shrugged. When Biden finally spoke, reporters didn’t inquire about the COVID-19 pandemic, instead asking “time-wasting questions,” noted journalism think tank Poynter.
If interrogated, Psaki deflects and says she’ll “circle back.” Or she offers mind-numbing non-sequiturs, such as when the stock market faced a crisis due to the GameStop fiasco. “Well, I’m also happy to repeat that we have the first female treasury secretary,” Psaki smirked.
A White House reporter told the Washingtonian that “she’s never going to be super-helpful, and that’s frustrating.”
At times, the Biden administration has been downright hostile to press freedom. Biden continued Trump’s effort to obtain email logs of New York Times reporters to identify their sources. Biden limited media access to border facilities. Journalists must get approval before publishing quotes from Biden officials. When Biden’s deputy press secretary T.J. Ducklo allegedly made “derogatory and misogynistic comments” to a reporter and threatened to “destroy” her, Biden merely suspended him for a week before he voluntarily resigned following public pressure.
Despite this abuse, journalists’ favoritism can be seen everywhere from how things are covered, what gets covered, and what doesn’t.
The press doesn’t hold Biden accountable. The Associated Press and Politico both ordered reporters not to describe the Mexican border situation as a “crisis,” although Biden himself used the term. And, unlike with Trump, there’s been little media outrage that children remain in cages or that Biden told migrants they’re not welcome here.
Journalists ignore Biden’s blunders. When Biden tripped three times ascending the stairs of Air Force One, major media outlets largely disregarded it. But when Trump slowly walked down a slippery ramp, the media had a feeding frenzy and questioned his health.
The media exaggerate Biden's popularity. A CBS News poll claimed 85% of viewers approved of Biden’s State of the Union speech, but the annual address this year had the smallest audience in decades, and fact-checkers revealed pollsters significantly oversampled Biden supporters.
Defenders of these double standards argue Trump merited tougher coverage. But that doesn’t explain why journalists have gone so easy on Biden. He’s received less negative coverage in the early going than former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, both of whom had higher approval ratings during the same period, and former President Bill Clinton, who presided during an incredibly prosperous time.
There’s no shortage of issues to critique Biden on, including possible ties to scandals. Where have you gone, Woodward and Bernstein?
Recall it was the Washington Post that adopted the slogan “democracy dies in darkness” during Trump's term. But now the paper and its Beltway brethren are turning the lights off.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/most-of-the-media-will-sleep-through-the-biden-years
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