Jonathan Chait is pretty hit-and-miss, but he got this pretty much right when comparing Trump and Biden’s performances at the recent dueling town halls, and concluding that any media bias is was for Trump, not Biden:
It is true that Trump found many of the questions posed to him difficult to answer and that Biden answered his queries more easily. It is also true that mainstream news coverage, in general, has depicted Trump in a brutally harsh light. (This, of course, omits conservative media, which functions as a state-controlled message machine.)
But it’s not the media’s fault that Trump continues to incriminate himself and is unable to answer simple questions. The problem is not that the media holds him to a difficult standard. He is held, by necessity, to a more forgiving standard than any modern president. But however low the bar is set, Trump continues to trip over it.
[…] When conservatives complain about Trump’s coverage, they are decrying not the standards being set but the outcomes. If their president is unable to clear even the lower bar set before him, it must be lowered further still, so that he can hop over it at least occasionally.
I’m not as ready as Chait to give the media as big a pass, but he has a couple of good examples of questions that Biden would never be asked because they’re too simple (such as disavowing QAnon), yet Trump completely blows them.
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RaflW
Trump just basically called Dr. Anthony Fauci an idiot on his morning call to reporters.
Any ‘negative’ coverage of Trump is plain and simple earned media.
Also, this:
SalterWobchak
Agree with this. Guthrie got props for “hard” questions she posed to Trump, but imagine has she actually tried to extract detailed policy proposals from him on, well, anything really. And pressed him and not let him filibuster with BS. Has anyone really done that? Maybe Swan and Wallace to some degree, but we could use a lot more of it.
BruceFromOhio
Going almost totally media dark for these last weeks. The death cultists make it too easy for the news media folks to jump up for the next snack Rudy and his handlers conjure and wave around, like stupid little dogs that yap incessantly for treats.
Exceptions made for David Farenthold, Balloon Juice, LGM.
Ken
How low do you have to set the bar for a man who thinks repeating “person, man, woman, camera, tv” is a tough task?
And you’ll notice that’s another one the media doesn’t give to Biden.
MattF
There’s still a certain level of disbelief about Trump. ‘Can he really be promoting bizarre conspiracy theories?’ ‘Can he really get away with flat-out racism?’ Yes, and yes. And so forth.
Baud
That’s been a perennial problem with how the media covers the two parties. It’s just that it’s so much more obvious with Trump.
The Dangerman
FTFY
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@RaflW:
#ettd
What motivation does Fauci have for taking the aloof high road?
Anonymous At Work
Chait’s usually pretty good when on the attack against Republicans. When defending his privilege or attacking teachers’ unions, just ignore him. And he’s a bit obsessive over Trump being a Russian agent, but nothing too horrible (compared with, for example, Greenwald).
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Waiting for Biden to take over so he can do his job.
debbie
Sarah Cooper has branched out into DJTJr territory.
germy
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
He’s been getting death threats and can’t go on walks with his wife without armed security. Maybe that’s why he isn’t more outspoken, although he’s been very outspoken.
debbie
@germy:
He certainly expressed himself on 60 Minutes last night.
gene108
Part of the problem we’ve had for the last 30 years is the MSM deciding to take right-wing media as serious news entities. Pre-Fox News they took gossip from the “The American Spectator”, or “The Washington Times”, etc. as well done journalism. It just got worse with the rise of Fox News.
With Republican Presidential candidates, the support they get from right-wing media and the deference showed by the MSM leads to incompetent Presidents skating through to the office, like Bush, Jr. and Trump.
Democrats, on the other hand, face a very unfriendly media environment, so their slightest flaws, real or imagined, will be glaringly exposed and questioned.
I think this imbalance in the media helps to partially account for why the last two Republican Presidents have been historically terrible
Edit: The odds one political party can follow one of the worst Presidents in U.S. history, with an even worse President is fucking nuts. The media is helping along this cavalcade of malicious, and incompetent candidates.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
from what I’ve gleaned, he wants to be able to watch the government approval of a vaccine, to stop trump from pushing one through
debbie
i wouldn’t be surprised if Fauci lost his temper (which he is said to have) considering Trump’s saying crap like thIs:
cope
Paul Campos at “Lawyers, Guns & Money” extends Chait’s article about the president* to include the whole right wing movement thusly:
“This is just a variation on a problem that right wingers face constantly, which is that since their ideas are wrong and their principles are evil, they get discriminated against a lot by any evaluative system which is biased against stupid and evil people.”
Another Scott
@MattF: After 4+ years of this stuff, they refuse to believe that Donnie and his minions are doing exactly what they want to do. It’s all deliberate.
E.g.
There’s no plan for Dreamers, there’s no plan for the ACA, there’s no plan to protect workers, there’s no plan to fight COVID. The press needs to stop pretending that there’s positive spin or upcoming competence in what Donnie’s doing. There isn’t.
Will the scales ever fall from their eyes??
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
@debbie:
His wife looks like she’s just about fed up with this administration’s bullshit.
WaterGirl
I am hoping we don’t have to have another Oklahoma City event like we had in 1995 for the pendulum to swing back in the right direction.
25 years later, and right-wing extremists are back in full force.
Jeffro
@Baud:
THIS
THIS
THIS
debbie
@germy:
Yeah, after Trump’s name-calling this morning, I’d be surprise if she would still stand silently by.
John S.
@cope: Help! Help! I’m being repressed! Come see the bias inherent in the system!
Jeffro
@cope:
People are cutting to the chase more and more, I see…good!
They literally have nothing – NOTH-ING – to offer people, whether to improve their lives or to move the country forward as a whole.
Their plans are no plans. They don’t even go for conservative/market solutions to our biggest problems. Case in point #1: the ACA. Case in point #2: carbon taxes (or lack thereof). Case in point #3: Covid response (or lack thereof). And on and on…
A Ghost to Most
@SalterWobchak:
Ok, Savannah didn’t cure cancer.
She did, however, disembowel him on national TV. I’m sorry that wasn’t enough for you
Kent
He also knows, that at this point the worst thing that can happen is that he takes a well-deserved 2 month vacation and is back running the show in a Biden Administration. Standing up to Trump now actually increases his future worth and credibility. By contrast, Deborah Birx has basically trashed her credibility in a Biden Admin with the incompetent private data collection scheme she was involved with. Trump destroys all who get close.
different-church-lady
@Another Scott: They still haven’t figure out election day started last week, have they?
BruceFromOhio
@WaterGirl:
There’s some folks still paying attention – here’s a take on lawn order.
Sebastian
As I keep saying, these double standards are in-kind-contributions and these fuckers need to be hammered for it.
Kay
I just love these House polls. You can say the national or state polls are off, and I would believe that because I am a nervous wreck, but the national and state also line up with the district polls.
So. What about that.
You know what would be a good idea? Just poll the ten or so bellweather counties in the US.
One of you could make money off this! You’d be the bellweather county person on cable. I see Martin in this role.
debbie
Just listened to an NPR interview with Harmeet Dhillon, apparently an important person in the California Republican Party, about those pretend ballot boxes they’ve set up. What a condescending, sanctimonious bitch. Happily, though, the microphone caught her taking a large swig of something. Let it be hemlock!
Brachiator
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Perhaps a sense of duty to science and to the people. And, as others have noted, Fauci wants to try to make sure that any vaccine is produced and evaluated properly.
Also, I guess, Trump owns the low road. You cannot beat him on his own turf.
Kent
The real problem is that they aren’t actually covering the two parties. There is very little media coverage of actual party positions and objectives.
What they actually cover is the “horse race” And Democrats are handicapped because they actually care about the issues while Republicans do not. Trump is held to a lower standard because Republican voters hold him to a lower standard. If they don’t give a flying fuck that Trump is insanely unfit for office then that fact isn’t going to attract so much media attention because it doesn’t affect the “horse race”
I don’t know how you fix that.
Mike in NC
The media created this Frankenstein’s monster currently stinking up our White House. Next week he’s going to declare a magic vaccine has been finalized by this new quack Atlas, and Doctors Birx and Fauci will either be sidelined or fired outright. From what I read Scott Atlas was brought in by none other than wonderboy Jared Kushner, whose instincts are even poorer than Fat Bastard’s.
germy
@debbie:
What did she say about the fake ballot boxes?
Amir Khalid
@SalterWobchak:
Trump is not detail-oriented when it comes to policy. Heck, he’s not even policy-oriented when it comes to policy. You can’t expect Savannah Guthrie to get out of Trump what he doesn’t have in him.
James E Powell
Chait says what we at this neglected backwater of the internet have been saying the whole time. Which is good, I guess, but he gives the press/media a total pass. It’s the usual grief and excuses that it is just so fucking hard to cover Trump, what can we do? Well, I suggest that they just pretend it’s a Clinton and do what they always do.
Chait says
While that may be true, if they did their jobs, the storm would have been over in a week or two, way back before the Iowa caucuses.
And the last four years haven’t shown us the press/media struggling to cover Trump. Instead we’ve seen them normalize him, cover for him, promote his lies and cove-ups, repeatedly search for and prematurely announced pivots and changes in tone. They have bowed down and become his tools.
I want them all to suffer.
Kay
@Mike in NC:
I don’t think this will work though, because as much as they want to live in a fantasy world and pretend none of this is happening, their timing could not be worse. It really is rising all over the midwest. It has absolutely eclipsed all other topics of conversation because it’s, ya know, real.
Squid696
@Kay: The anti-Kulkarni ads here in Houston are so way over the top I really don’t think they are having an effect. They make it sound like he spends all his free time attending drug-filled orgies at Burning Man. In contrast, the anti-Nehls ads have excerpts from his termination letter from the local PD showing his firing for destroying evidence and improperly arresting people. The actual Kulkarni ads are not very good though. I hope he can pull it out.
Haroldo
@Kay:
For better or worse, here’s David Wasserman doing exactly that for the Cook Report:
cookpolitical.com/index.php/analysis/national/national-politics/10-bellwether-counties-show-how-trum…
MisterForkbeard
@germy: I’m just going to assume it was a “Democrats do this all the time, and all we’re doing is what they’re doing and we’re being persecuted” nonsense.
But with more condescension.
WaterGirl
@Kent:
At this point, I wouldn’t trust Deborah Birx to watch my dogs so I could go spend Christmas with family
edit: This, of course, is hypothetical because I will not be spending christmas with my family because of COVID.
trnc
@A Ghost to Most:
No one expects her to cure cancer. It’s good that she didn’t just let him get by with BS, but Salter makes a fair point – she didn’t ask policy questions. That’s precisely the result of the MSM lowering the bar for him and his observation fits perfectly in this thread.
WaterGirl
@BruceFromOhio: Let’s hope the good guys can make it through January 20.
germy
@WaterGirl:
You’d return and find them all wearing scarves!
Kay
@Haroldo:
That’s a start but it’s not polling. He needs to poll Wood County, Ohio. Only then can he be the star of my imaginary cable segment.
I actually got there a roundabout way. I asked the Dem running for the House in the 5th district, which includes Wood County. They have Biden as up, or did weeks ago and the House district is both bigger and more conservative than just Wood County.
You wouldn’t even have to pay for a poll, maybe. Just find the corresponding House district and use theirs.
James E Powell
@Baud:
Totally agree. And, in my mind, the main reason for this is that the right-wing serves the interests of the ruling class. Reporters refuse or are never allowed to say that almost all of the people and corporations for whom they work want right-wing policy outcomes on taxes, corporate regulation, environmental laws, and a host of others. They are more than willing to tolerate or even promote racism, misogyny, religious bigotry, and toxic nationalism if it helps them get those policy outcomes
WaterGirl
@Haroldo: Thanks for that link. Saving it for a full reading later.
Aleta
@Another Scott: // Here’s a story for media to report: Trump Using Major News Outlets to Replace Ad Buys with Daily Lies
Achieves wider broadcast, pockets money. Forbes headline quotes spokespeople framing cancellation as ‘Extremely Confident’ about swing states, in attempt to keep contributions flowing.
Eta: made up except for Forbes headline
WaterGirl
@germy: That would be the best possible outcome. All I would have to do would be to burn the scarves.
I wouldn’t believe her if she said she fed them and let them out, and if she sent me photos I would wonder if she had taken them on day 1 and just sent them out later to make me think everything is okay.
She is irredeemable.
trnc
We’re a few weeks away from an election and there are still allegedly undecided voters. If she had asked him a policy question, it would likely have demonstrated that he doesn’t have a grasp of even the simplest policy.
This entire thread is about the MSM dumbing down the conversation to DT’s level, yet for some reason at least a few people here have 100% accepted that there’s no point in asking a sitting president a policy question or any second term agenda item.
Roger Moore
@cope:
It’s not just the stupidity and evilness that are the problem. There’s also the problem of the intellectual sterility of conservatism as a movement. Conservatism is about refusing to solve society’s problems because the rich people backing conservatism find those problems too profitable. That means starting from the answer- no, we can’t fix that- and working back to finding data that justifies it. That’s an intellectually bankrupt process, and it drives away smart people who are capable of solving problems. Since smart people capable of solving problems are much more in demand than dumb ones interested in perpetuating them, conservatism tends to attract lousy people.
A Ghost to Most
@trnc: Purity over progress.
Nothing like looking a gift horse in the mouth. She could have trotted out her “Today” persona, and lobbed softball policy questions he wouldn’t answer.
Instead, she spoke for every pissed off NBC employee, and went after him. I had low expectations, but she hit a screamer into his face.
“Policy” left the building 4 years ago.
BruceFromOhio
@James E Powell:
MrsFromOhio and I got into a huge spat about this when I trashed NPR for “normalizing a monster.” We agreed that she would listen to the podcasts on headphones, and I would stick to Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal.
A Ghost to Most
@trnc: Purity over progress.
Nothing like looking a gift horse in the mouth. She could have trotted out her “Today” persona, and lobbed softball policy questions he wouldn’t answer.
Instead, she spoke for every pissed off NBC employee, and went after him. I had low expectations, but she hit a screamer into his face.
“Policy” left the building 4 years ago.
Haroldo
@Haroldo:
Wasserman mentions polls in some Congressional Districts, tho’ Wood Country is not in one of the CDs polled.
Kent
If Biden wins Collin County TX then we are in unchartered territory. That’s the GOP heartland, the wealthy white flight suburbs north of Dallas like Plano, Frisco, McKinney, and Allen. That part of TX was as red rock Republican as could be during the Obama years.
japa21
OT but I wanted to bring this here. A little background. Sawyer County is in northern Wisconsin and has a population of 16,000. As of the end of may they had fewer than 25 cases. They currently stand at 342.
It s strong Trump country and there is a significant population, including some relatives of mine, that are adamantly anti mask and anti any government efforts to impose any restrictions.
The county department of public health usually updates its figures every day. They did not over the weekend, partly because WI as a whole wasn’t updating any figures and also because they are being overworked. They put this on their site this morning. Emphasis mine.
mad citizen
My favorite twitter observation (aaron rupar feed) over the weekend from trump’s crazy rallies is that his main policy for his second term seems to be going into his audience and kissing the big powerful men.
I’m not sure at this point if he can name the three branches of government.
Nicole
@BruceFromOhio:
I had a lovely, lovely weekend out of town with a good friend and our kids (getting back yesterday) and the only bad spot was having to bite my tongue when she asked to listen to NPR on the way home. She gets mad when I call them Nice Polite Republicans (she’s all in for Biden-Harris, but likes her NPR).
I am so with you. Do not like.
John S.
@MisterForkbeard: More like “we’re going to do what we accuse Democrats of doing, but don’t actually do, just to show it can be done”.
BruceFromOhio
@Nicole:
Good on you for keeping the peace in a moment like that, it’s worth the teeth marks in the taste buds.
James E Powell
@WaterGirl:
I read at TPM that Birx supposedly objected to Atlas being on the COVID task force. This is like the “Ivanka objected to the cruelty” stories. Nobody gives a shit what she (allegedly) did behind closed doors. That’s not how these people work.
Another Scott
@trnc: In a normal campaign policy questions are good and appropriate.
This isn’t a normal campaign.
Donnie lies about everything. What would be the point in asking him about policy? He would contradict himself minutes to days later and nobody would really care.
“We’re looking at is very strongly. You’ll see, it will be bigly great, the best ever, …”
TV “debates” are spectacles. We’re fortunate that Donnie couldn’t help but remind people what a monster he is.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
James E Powell
@Nicole:
I don’t understand people who cling to NPR or the NYT when the damage they’ve done and continue to do is so apparent.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WaterGirl: If folks ever get the chance, I recommend going through the OKBomb museum in OK City. It takes you minute by minute through the event, starting with first news reports. They have clips of newscasters saying they were getting reports and it was probably a gas explosion.
Haroldo
@Kent:
That’s the sort of uncharted territory I would relish, to be sure.
BruceFromOhio
@James E Powell:
Here’s what I learned in conversation with MFO and my mom (A NYTimes subscriber)
– I look for the political opinion pieces, they look for anything else.
– NYT and NPR have deep cultural reporting benches that are pretty good.
– Each has significant content that is unrelated to politics. “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” and “This American Life” live under the NPR brand even though each has little to do with the news. The NYT cooking, travel and book reviews are mom’s first stop. She ‘skims the front page, but it’s never good.’ You got that right, mom.
– Both resented and disagreed with my characterization of “normalizing a monster.”
My kin and Nicole’s friend all fly the Biden banner, that’s what counts.
debbie
@germy:
That the Democrats were doing the same (I assume because the SoS is actually a Democrat ?) and it really wasn’t a big deal.
I wanted to rip her face off.
mad citizen
@japa21: I wonder where the anti-government Live Free and Die philosophy is going to take these areas of the country? Will they at some point refuse to send their children to schools? Even the Amish (in my state) let their children attend through the mandatory age–16. Not sure what the statistics are post-16.
Re: A new OKC-style attack–a grim fact, but high-person targets are harder to find since so many office workers are not in the office these days.
jonas
“@WaterGirl:
The FBI hasn’t characterized white supremacist militants as the number one terror threat to the country for nothing. It’s horrible to have to think this way, but I’m bracing myself for some kind of mass murder event by one of these groups if Biden wins — hoping to trigger a Civil War II or something. The FBI seems to be foiling some of the stupider plots, like kidnapping the governor of Michigan, but there will be another McVeigh out there clever enough to slip through the cracks.
evodevo
@BruceFromOhio: LOL YES…the hubby and I also disagree…I find the Nice Polite Republicans almost impossible to listen to without grinding my teeth to dust…so I put in earplugs and read something instead (he insists on tuning in to them every time we are traveling anywhere)
...now I try to be amused
@Roger Moore:
One significant exception: Conservatism has to solve the challenging problem of winning elections despite their policy bankruptcy. They seem to attract smart people to run their campaigns. At least cunning ones, people who understand what really motivates voters.
WaterGirl
@James E Powell: Ugh ugh ugh. She is a disgrace.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: They should make a virtual museum, too! And use it as part of civics in school.
WaterGirl
@jonas: Yeah, it will probably get uglier before it gets better.
Some of these people are insane with hatred.
Kent
By the way, sort of off topic. But I recently bought the Gary Trudeau Doonesbury Retrospective of his decades of covering Trump. I stopped reading Doonesbury decades ago when I stopped reading the paper daily paper. So all this stuff is new to me. But wow, my God. Gary Trudeau absolutely had Trump nailed to the wall. Even decades ago. I’m reading his 1980s stuff now and I have to keep checking the dates to realize the cartoons were written about Trump in 1989 during the first Bush Administration and not today. Trump is EXACTLY the same. Great stuff. Trudeau had Trump nailed long before anyone else I think.
sdhays
Can you really say that when Fat Bastard’s instincts tell him to trust Jared? What’s the transitive property of poor judgement?
J R in WV
@James E Powell:
@BruceFromOhio:
This at my house. Wife was a media pro her whole life, starting as a youngster, until she achieved total permanent disability several years ago. And it is true that on non-political stories both the NYT and NPR do very well. Locally our WV Public Broadcasting does great environmental reporting, for example.
So she listens to NPR for an hour each evening, and also to ABC evening news, which is the only network news which we receive via over the air broadcast. Since she is in the next room (kitchen) while I am in the library, I hear those shows most evenings.
Other than politics, they are really very good. Even for politics, they are among the better MSM sources, which is a shame, as the general public needs better resources! PBS on the other hand, not so much.
We contribute to WV Public Broadcasting, which is one of the last statewide news sources left here. Plus their music broadcasts are great. Mountain Stage alone would be worth the donation.
RaflW
@Kent: Well, when they cover Republican positions they parrot things like ‘pro-business’ and ‘religious freedom’ so it’s all just bullshit.