The Press Is Back In Full Frenzy Mode, But This Time Nobody Is Listening
You’d think the mainstream press would have learned a lesson or two after committing so many embarrassing mistakes in its effort to “get” Donald Trump and cover up for Joe Biden over the past eight years. But no. It’s already back to its old and terrible habits.
Shortly after the election, Vanity Fair published a story that led with this admonition to the press: “Every outrage and insult can’t be a five-alarm fire, as it’s critical for the media to stay focused on the most serious threats to America’s democratic institutions.”
Former New York Times editor Jill Abramson cautioned her colleagues to “watch and restrain headlines on stories that are needlessly hyperbolic or over-the-top negative.”
Brian McGory, former Boston Globe editor, said it’s “time to cover his actions and policies, his successes and his failures. To do it through as conventional a lens as possible, while not normalizing mayhem, and a willingness to acknowledge when things go well.”
But instead of heeding this advice, the mainstream press went right back to its frantic Trump-hating roots.
News stories assume the absolute worst about Trump. Reporters run with thinly sourced stories to attack him. They freak out about everything he says. Stoke panic at every turn. Endlessly predict doom and gloom. Play up astroturf protests. And studiously ignore whatever successes Trump does achieve. When context is needed, it’s ignored.
This makes it all but impossible for the average American to know what they can trust, or when there actually is something to be concerned about. When everything is a crisis, nothing is.
When rogue federal judges started routinely issuing universal injunctions against Trump executive orders, a practice that is legally suspect and was extremely rare until Trump showed up, the story wasn’t how these judges wildly overstepped their bounds, it’s that Trump was creating a “constitutional crisis.”
When an illegal immigrant from El Salvador (widely depicted as a “Maryland father”) is deported back to a maximum security prison in his home country, the press acts as though any American citizen could suffer the same fate.
When DOGE starts pruning the fantastically wasteful government and firing a few overpaid bureaucrats, the stories aren’t about the $2 trillion deficit that President Biden left Trump, but sob stories about laid-off workers and how “lives are at stake.”
When Trump decides to enforce Visa restrictions for foreign students in the U.S., the New York Times runs a story headlined: “Losing International Students Could Devastate Many Colleges.” Note the weasel word “could.” You could put anything after that.
Every soft economic number is shouted from the rooftops as a sign of a coming economic collapse. But when employment numbers come in higher than expected, or inflation lower than expected, it’s crickets.
The good news is that nobody seems to care. CNN asked the public something they’ve never done during a Democratic administration: Do you regret your vote? Turns out, nobody regrets voting for Trump or voting against Harris.
The public is far less dissatisfied with the direction of the country today – 52% say it’s on the wrong track vs. 64% a year ago, according to RealClearPolitics.
Our I&I/TIPP poll finds that the public overwhelmingly supports his actions on DEI, transgender sports, and border security.
Are we saying Trump has done nothing wrong? Of course not. We have already pointed out how the unfolding of his tariff plan has been a complete mess and that he’s losing the narrative on the economy.
The fact that Trump is deeply underwater on his handling of the economy should be a wake-up call to the administration that it so far seems unconcerned about, but which poses enormous risks to his term and the future of the Republican party. You’d never know that, amidst the constant screeching about how the sky is falling whenever Trump opens his mouth.
But what else can the mainstream press do? After having predicted the end of democracy and the rise of “fascism” should Trump be elected, or reelected, they have a vested interest in proving themselves right.
If that means distorting the truth behind recognition, sacrificing basic journalistic standards, undermining the safety and security of the country, driving their reputations deeper into the mud, so be it.
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