Since the moment he announced his candidacy for president, you cannot watch the news without seeing negative report of some kind against President Trump. When the media couldn’t convince the American people that his candidacy was a joke, they turned to salacious reports of his personal life. When that didn’t work, they turned to the current narrative that President Trump is a Russian agent who reports directly to President Vladimir Putin. Someone bound to destroy our republic from the very top.
The Historical Relationship Between American Presidents and the Media
American presidents, especially Republicans, have a history of contentious relationships with the media. However, something about Donald Trump definitely brought out the worst in ”journalists.” No longer seeking to report the actual events of a story, they often become a part of the story themselves by inserting their own views into their reports. In short, they turn what should be a factual portrayal of an event into nothing more than a biased opinion piece. They know very well that most of their audience will buy into it as a fact that may not and should not be questioned or examined in any way.
Despite President Trump’s past two years in office, many can’t name a single positive result from his administration. Has the president not done anything worthy of praise or has the media simply refused to give him an ounce of credit because they hate the man?
Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due
Under President Trump, the US economy is booming. America has the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. African American and Hispanic unemployment is at all-time lows. The markets increased by $6 trillion dollars in value—with the DOW index rising from 18,000 to 24,000. Not to mention President Trump’s tireless efforts to stabilize the Korean Peninsula.
Hope on the Horizon?
After more than 42 months of nonstop Trump bashing, the media may have finally gone too far. More and more people are opening their eyes to the non-stop, liberal attack on the president. It is remarkable to have a 43 percent approval rating when 97 percent of national news coverage is focused against him.
In her soon-to-be-released book, Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of the New York Times says the paper’s “…pages were unmistakably anti-Trump,” and that “some headlines contained raw opinion, as did some of the stories that were labeled as news analysis.”
Ms. Abramson isn’t the only member of the media elite to call out anti-Trump bias. Bill Arkin, former NBC News contributor, earlier this month resigned saying, “In our day-to-day whirlwind and hostage status as prisoners of Donald Trump, I think—like everyone else does—that we miss so much.” Arkin drove the point home by saying he is “disheartened to watch NBC and much of the rest of the news media somehow become a defender of Washington and the system.”
The bias against Trump has been noticed by one of his predecessors. President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, told Maureen Dowd in an interview with the New York Times that “the media have been harder on Trump than any other president.”
Forcing Biased Opinions on the People as Factual Reports
Journalists once prided themselves on being the impartial presenters of the truth. Yet recently, instead of revealing the best and worst of humanity through an unfiltered lens, the media started forcing biased opinions on their audience as factual reports.
Buzzfeed recently reported that the president told his former attorney to lie in his testimony before Congress. For the first time during the investigation, special counsel Robert Mueller issued a statement saying, in part, the Buzzfeed report is “inaccurate.” That message was too little too late. Three Democrats in Congress called for impeachment proceedings based on the fabricated information published by Buzzfeed.
Creating a Dangerous Mob Mentality
The media’s production of false stories against President Trump caused members of Congress to act with a dangerous mob mentality. The Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Rep. Hakeeem Jeffries, observed Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by calling the president “the grand wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” suggesting Trump is a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Newly-elected congresswoman Rashida Tlaib said, “We’re going to go in there and impeach the motherfucker,” moments after she was sworn in to represent Michigan’s 13th Congressional District.
Irrational Hatred Destroying Formerly Trusted & Beloved American Media Outlets
The irrational (and unsupported) hatred of Trump is destroying the national press, not the alleged use of fake news by the administration. By the way, the term, fake news, was first used by the Clinton campaign to minimize the disappearance of more than 30,000 emails from Clinton’s private server. The term has since morphed into a phrase to attack and de-legitimize any communication from Trump administration officials.
The mainstream media would do well to listen to the concerns of Abramson and Arkin in order to preserve what little credibility their profession has left. What is more dangerous to our country: a president who puts America first or an out-of-control media determined to undermine him at every step along the way?