The Press Reveals Their Bias: Prepares for Softer Approach with Biden
/The press had an interesting relationship with former President Donald Trump. Hostile doesn’t even begin to describe it. On one hand, they hated each other. On the other, Trump still sought their affection (like granting the Woodward interviews) and the media saw Trump as a cash cow. Journalists branded themselves as freedom fighters and donned a cape of self-righteousness, while Trump got a kick out of figuratively punching them in the face.
Now that the Biden Administration is taking the helm, journalists are breathing a sigh of relief. Jim Acosta, who would often talk out of turn and once fought an intern over a microphone, is now going off into the sunset with a show and a bestseller.
The media has already hinted they will not aim to cover Biden like they did Trump. Acosta told The Atlantic, “I don’t think the press should be trying to whip up the Biden presidency and turn it into must-see TV in a contrived way.” He claimed it wasn’t partisan but rather a matter of professional solidarity.
I wonder if Jim Acosta thought riveting CNN reporting on feeding koi fish, the controversy of two scoops of ice cream, or whether or not Trump was afraid of stairs was contrived.
Daniel Dale of CNN also said there wouldn’t be a “24-hour, seven-day-a-week job to fact-check Biden.” He made a bold claim that Biden doesn’t lie nearly as often as Trump. Mind you, Biden had to drop out of his first presidential run because of plagiarism and got caught in a lie about participating in the Civil Rights movement—a lie he has since then repeated. On the campaign trail, he embellished his resume about attending historically black colleges, teaching at universities, being endorsed by the NAACP, claimed President Trump advised Americans to take bleach for COVID, blamed literally every COVID death on Trump, and he went back and forth about fracking.
Brian Stelter believes Biden is making the news boring again! The Reliable Sources host also believes it’s so refreshing the Biden administration is promising to “share accurate info,” he personally wrote the Chyron: “How Refreshing.” Though Stelter’s level of unprofessionalism, naivety, and bias isn’t surprising, it’s fun to learn hosts sometimes write their own silly Chyrons.
Glenn Kessler, who is a Washington Post fact-checker, stated “I assume the Biden presidency will be a lot like the Obama presidency, and that they will be responsive, and will be able to quickly back up what they’re saying.”
Obama’s administration is not a shining example of transparency or honesty. Remember when the current Press Secretary Jen Psaki was a State Department spokeswoman? A Fox News Reporter once grilled her over the administration’s dishonesty regarding nuclear conversations with Iran. She replied with, “diplomacy needs privacy,” yet the administration ran into more controversy after they scrubbed nine minutes of the briefing from a video.
Journalists make it sound as if dealing with Trump was like going through a warzone, yet Obama-Biden was much more vicious to the freedom of the press. Obama used the Espionage Act against whistleblowers more than any of his predecessors. The Obama administration also spied on journalists, such as James Rosen of Fox News.
If the media wants to maintain public trust and objectivity, they should have practiced it during the campaign. Glenn Greenwald left The Intercept, a paper he began, because they wanted to edit out criticism of Biden. In an interview with Reason, he mocks the self-importance of journalists under Trump vs Obama. “I was threatened by the Obama administration with prison when I was doing the Snowden reporting. I was criminally indicted by the [Jair] Bolsonaro government at the beginning of [2020] for the reporting I did in Brazil. Those are attacks on press freedom. Saying Jim Acosta is an idiot, and tweeting something insulting about Wolf Blitzer, isn't.”
The New York Post story regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop was not only ignored by major media; it was suppressed by Big Tech. If you replaced “Hunter Biden” with “Donald Trump Jr,” even the fiercest Trump haters can admit the coverage would have been different. The press also rarely pressed Biden or Vice President Harris on the campaign trail.
Tara Reade, who accused Biden of sexual assault, was covered vastly different than Trump or Kavanaugh accusers. When it came to retrieving evidence that could have added legitimacy or disproven her claims, Biden wouldn’t play ball. Mika Brzezinski of Morning Joe pressed Biden on why he wouldn’t unseal his Senate documents in Delaware. He said there were position papers, interviews, and speeches he had given that would be “fodder in a campaign.” Did the media pounce to find these juicy details that could have wrecked Biden? Of course not.
Biden called many early lids, had very few press conferences, and many softball interviews. Not only did Biden get away with not answering questions regarding his decisions on court-packing, but journalists also moved to redefine the term, so they could claim Republicans had been doing it for the past four years by filling vacant seats.
Megyn Kelly, who was once the very public target of Trump and his supporters, told BBC Newsnight that Americans have no trust in the media. Kelly once said she liked CNN and thought the former president’s attacks were unfair, but then they made his criticisms legit. “They hated him so much they checked their objectivity. And it wasn’t just CNN. All of them did. They couldn’t check their own personal feelings about him.”
The freedom of the press is crucial but so is honesty. Trump’s willingness to fight with the press was applauded by his supporters, because they recalled the media’s long bias against Republicans: Romney, McCain, the Bushes, and Reagan. The press should have been allies of the truth, not adversaries to Trump. There is a difference. The belief that there isn’t, warped reporting into occasional propaganda.
If legacy media wants to undo their damage and salvage their trust with the American public, they’re not off to a great start.
