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The new battle cry: Why can't the media 'stop' Trump?
FoxNews.com
Howard Kurtz
3/17/2016
Excerpt:
As Donald Trump’s detractors grow increasingly loud and desperate, they are aiming their ire at a new target:
The media.
Trump must be stopped, they declare, and it’s the media’s mission to halt him in his tracks.
It’s an argument that fundamentally misreads the role of the press. And it is being made by some generally smart people who are so apoplectic over the prospect of a Trump nomination or Trump presidency that they don’t understand why journalists haven’t convinced the country to despise The Donald the way they do.
The new rallying cry is an outgrowth of earlier laments that the media “created” Trump or “enabled” Trump or “rolled over” for Trump, as if that, even if true, is responsible for him winning 19 Republican contests.
Nearly 7-1/2 years after Barack Obama’s election, we still hear a familiar refrain on the right: If only the media had properly vetted him, he would never have made it to the White House. Never mind that Obama managed to beat the Clinton machine in his first campaign and then to get himself reelected. The 2008 coverage of Obama was indeed too soft, but by 2012 the country certainly knew what it was getting.
The current complaints center on the fantasy notion that news organizations have failed to aggressively report on Trump.
But I have read hundreds of articles, and watched thousands of segments, about Trump’s business setbacks; his casino bankruptcies; allegations of mob ties and racial discrimination; the use of foreign workers to staff his properties and make his merchandise; how he gave large sums to Democrats, including Hillary Clinton; how he changed from liberal positions on abortion and health care; even accusations that he cheats at golf.
I have consumed many fact-checking efforts about erroneous or questionable statements he has made, about how much Medicare spends on prescription drugs, or having watched reports of thousands of Muslims celebrating on 9/11 in New Jersey.
I have read or seen a long line of commentators accusing Trump of being racist, sexist, misogynist, xenophobic, of being ignorant on policy, of encouraging violence.
And yet he keeps winning primaries. The negative media attention and fact-checking attempts bounce off him like rubber arrows.
There are limits, it turns out, to the mighty power of the press. Voters don’t much trust the media these days, and they get to decide which candidates they like.
Of course Trump has received disproportionate air time of his rallies and speeches in a way that is unfair to his rivals. But he also subjects himself to seemingly endless rounds of interviews—including the morning shows yesterday--taking all manner of journalistic questions in a way that his opponents do not. Hillary Clinton, for instance, has gone about 100 days without holding a news conference.
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View the complete article, including video, at:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016...top-trump.html
FoxNews.com
Howard Kurtz
3/17/2016
Excerpt:
As Donald Trump’s detractors grow increasingly loud and desperate, they are aiming their ire at a new target:
The media.
Trump must be stopped, they declare, and it’s the media’s mission to halt him in his tracks.
It’s an argument that fundamentally misreads the role of the press. And it is being made by some generally smart people who are so apoplectic over the prospect of a Trump nomination or Trump presidency that they don’t understand why journalists haven’t convinced the country to despise The Donald the way they do.
The new rallying cry is an outgrowth of earlier laments that the media “created” Trump or “enabled” Trump or “rolled over” for Trump, as if that, even if true, is responsible for him winning 19 Republican contests.
Nearly 7-1/2 years after Barack Obama’s election, we still hear a familiar refrain on the right: If only the media had properly vetted him, he would never have made it to the White House. Never mind that Obama managed to beat the Clinton machine in his first campaign and then to get himself reelected. The 2008 coverage of Obama was indeed too soft, but by 2012 the country certainly knew what it was getting.
The current complaints center on the fantasy notion that news organizations have failed to aggressively report on Trump.
But I have read hundreds of articles, and watched thousands of segments, about Trump’s business setbacks; his casino bankruptcies; allegations of mob ties and racial discrimination; the use of foreign workers to staff his properties and make his merchandise; how he gave large sums to Democrats, including Hillary Clinton; how he changed from liberal positions on abortion and health care; even accusations that he cheats at golf.
I have consumed many fact-checking efforts about erroneous or questionable statements he has made, about how much Medicare spends on prescription drugs, or having watched reports of thousands of Muslims celebrating on 9/11 in New Jersey.
I have read or seen a long line of commentators accusing Trump of being racist, sexist, misogynist, xenophobic, of being ignorant on policy, of encouraging violence.
And yet he keeps winning primaries. The negative media attention and fact-checking attempts bounce off him like rubber arrows.
There are limits, it turns out, to the mighty power of the press. Voters don’t much trust the media these days, and they get to decide which candidates they like.
Of course Trump has received disproportionate air time of his rallies and speeches in a way that is unfair to his rivals. But he also subjects himself to seemingly endless rounds of interviews—including the morning shows yesterday--taking all manner of journalistic questions in a way that his opponents do not. Hillary Clinton, for instance, has gone about 100 days without holding a news conference.
.........................................
View the complete article, including video, at:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016...top-trump.html