Mainstream news coverage does not reflect the political make-up of the Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Mainstream media is exceedingly likely to cover news through a partisan filter. So it’s no surprise that liberals and conservatives are polarized when it comes to news sources they trust and utilize.
In 2019, Media Research Center analyzed 540 hours of news coverage on CNN and MSNBC over three randomly-selected weeks. The two networks conducted nearly the same number of interviews with members of Congress. In total, they interviewed 284 Democratic members of congress compared to just 40 Republican. MSNBC leaned even more to the left, as they interviewed 148 Democrats and only 11 republicans.
Both networks gave opposing questions to the Republicans but gave friendly questions to the Democrats. Meaning, they focused on Democratic talking points and agendas.
It’s common practice to ask a political interviewee to give an answer to the argument of the opposite side, but consistently asking Republicans to answer to Democratic talking points, while hardly ever asking Democrats to do the same thing, speaks to the fact that the networks are actually choosing sides.
Eric Merkley, a contributor to the American Politics and Policy website who specializes in public opinion and political communication, recently studied 400,000 news stories on economics published over three decades and found that the mainstream portrayed liberal politicians in a better light than their conservative colleagues.
The news stories were on unemployment and inflation between 1985 and 2013 from the Associated Press and a variety of mainstream newspapers, including the New York Times, USA Today, and those with histories of backing the Republican Party, such as the Dallas Morning News and the San Diego Union-Tribune.
He found that the tenor on economic news is more favorable during Democratic presidencies compared to Republican. He also found that only Republican administrations are treated with more negative coverage in response to short-term increases in unemployment or the inflation rate.
On Tuesday, conservative artist and meme creator Carpe Donktum launched a new meme repository site called MemeWorld.com. After the announcement, in a private group chat on Facebook Messenger, I tried to share the site and received an error message that stated, “You can’t share this link: memeworld.com.” That means that beyond banning conservative content on its public-facing site, Facebook is banning you from sharing content it finds objectionable with your friends in private messages.
On Wednesday, a Facebook spokesman responded to Blaze Media’s request for comment by linking to the company’s “Community Standards Enforcement Report” and said more information on the particular case would be forthcoming. The report lists categories that content can be banned for. It includes things such as terrorist activities and the ubiquitous catch-all term hate speech.
Moments after Facebook’s initial response to Blaze Media, MemeWorld.com was able to be shared on its platform. Facebook confirmed that “site was blocked in error.” A spokesman was unable to confirm what caused the error and said the company is looking into “what caused the error.”
While that’s an encouraging sign, it doesn’t change the fact that sharing the site was banned not only on Facebook’s public-facing platform, but in a private message in the first place.
It was really no surprise that most of the journalists sharing a campaign plane with Hillary Clinton in 2016 were coddling her, certain they were traveling with the next president of the United States.
And then came Wikileaks’ dump of John Podesta’s emails, which more explicitly spelled out which journalists were open to “fact-checking” before publication and which reporters could be relied on to consistently “tee-up” stories the campaign wanted out there in print.
Attorney and forthcoming author James Hasson has put together a great thread reminding us just how many journalists were straight-up coordinating with the Clinton campaign in 2016, and who will likely be doing to the same for the 2020 nominee.
Check it out:
A timely reminder that in 2016, several major journalists were revealed to be explicitly coordinating with the Clinton campaign or—at the very least—favoring it and working closely with it. None suffered consequences. These folks will help shape 2020 coverage.
WaPo columnist Dana Milbank, who recently accused Mitch McConnell of being a Russian asset ("Moscow Mitch"), apparently asked the DNC in 2016 for oppo research on Trump. 2/ https://t.co/AnIIxjf2S8
Thrush also told Podesta "because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u," and said,"please don't share or tell anyone I did this." 4/
And then there's John Harwood of CNBC, who consistently tweets misleading and critical takes on the economy. Harwood's exchanges with Podesta included gloating about his questions at a 2015 GOP primary debate, among many others 5/ https://t.co/v5MbbQN2tohttps://t.co/wT1fA8qwxupic.twitter.com/RNnfenkCAJ
Mark Leibovitch, the Chief National Correspondent for NYT Magazine, told HRC aide Jennifer Palmieri she could "veto whatever [she] didn't want" before he published a story titled "Re-Re-Re-Reintroducing Hillary Clinton." He cut parts she objected to. 6/ https://t.co/OKbbhjkSt0
Ken Vogel sent the DNC Communications Director an article about the HRC campaign's fundraising ahead of time, "as long as [the director] didn't share it." Politico acknowledged that doing so was "a mistake." 7/ https://t.co/KsNKUdJgjd
And of course, Maggie Haberman—then with Politico and now with the NYT—was singled out by HRC spokesman Nick Merrill as a "friendly journalist" who was "safe" and had "teed up stories" for the campaign in the past and "never disappointed" them. 8/https://t.co/V5UhDVMMGC
I'm sure there are many other examples, but these are just a few.
In short, it's hard to dismiss accusations of media bias when a number of prominent journos at major organizations actively worked with a Dem campaign in 2016 but are still on the 2020 beat. 9/
Whether you like Trump or hate him, things like this are a stain on the journalism industry. And they're a prime example of why half of the country doesn't trust what they hear from major media outlets. Trump didn't create distrust in media, he exploited it. /fin
