Trump and the Press

[Ric Flair]

1 minute ago, commando said:

typical response of a trumper.  pick a letter and go with it 

a. but obama

b.  but hillary

c. those damn liberals

 

Typical response of a Trump-hater to any mention of the obvious ridiculous glaring doublestandard in news coverage.

 

a. Complete denial of something that is easily verifiable.

b. Blame Trump...”they hate him because he’s mean to them” or some other nonsense

c. Mutter incoherently about whataboutism and wander off

[commando]

 the truth is that the truth is not the truth.  have i got that right?

[Ric Flair]

15 minutes ago, commando said:

 the truth is that the truth is not the truth.  have i got that right?

 

No, that's simply untrue.

[commando]

4 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

 

No, that's simply untrue.

well dammit....that's what rudy told us this morning.  it's so tough to keep track of what  todays truth with this administration

[Making Chimichangas]

2 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

 

You’re confusing cause and effect. Much of what he says, especially to and about the press, is the direct result of their nonstop and ridiculously over the top criticism of everything he says and does. 

 

And if he’s so clearly such a horrible racist, why do so many black voters now approve of him? 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/08/16/trump-approval-rating-african-americans-rasmussen-poll/1013212002/

 

It is interesting you think the "confusion" is on my part.    

 

*Calling all Mexicans rapists

*Starting policies that separate children from their parents

*Refusing to rent to black people

*His tacit approval of, and not condemning, white supremacists

---------Or at the minimum half-heartedly "condemning" them

*His incredibly racist diatribes on Twitter

 

I mean seriously Ric, you yourself have said several times that Trump has said terrible and awful things.

 

This is crazy, Trump has said and done so many awful racist things and yet you just don't see how we come to the conclusion Trump is a racist.

 

Just....

 

 

 

[LumberJackSker]

As far as how the press has treated past presidents the right wing media claimed obama was a muslim from kenya and an enemy of the usa. I remember during obamas first term he gave his wife a fist bump as he walked of stage after a speech fox news ran a segment calling the fist bump a terrorist fist jab. That seems pretty hysterical to me.

[Ric Flair]

3 hours ago, Making Chimichangas said:

 

It is interesting you think the "confusion" is on my part.    

 

*Calling all Mexicans rapists

*Starting policies that separate children from their parents

*Refusing to rent to black people

*His tacit approval of, and not condemning, white supremacists

---------Or at the minimum half-heartedly "condemning" them

*His incredibly racist diatribes on Twitter

 

I mean seriously Ric, you yourself have said several times that Trump has said terrible and awful things.

 

This is crazy, Trump has said and done so many awful racist things and yet you just don't see how we come to the conclusion Trump is a racist.

 

Just....

 

 

 

 

We’ve already been over whether he called ALL Mexicans rapists. I think claiming he did is a wild overstatement.

 

I’m not a fan of separating kids from their parents. But I’m also not a fan of anyone who feels like coming here simply wandering across the border, in complete violation of our laws. 

 

I wish Trump would make clear his disdain for white supremacists. 

 

But plenty of people, including many minorities, who know Trump, insist he’s no racist. My mom knows someone here in Omaha who worked for years for the Trump Organization in New York. She said Trump is the best and fairest boss she’s ever had. She’s a Democrat and voted for him for President because she likes the guy so much.

 

I have no idea if Trump is a racist. I could cobble together statements Obama made and claim he had issues with white people. Various former Presidents were uncomfortable around minorities. LBJ was famous for being incredibly racist. Some of the things Bill Clinton said about Obama were more clearly racist than anything I have ever heard Trump say.

 

So it’s more complicated than Trump - bad, Democrats - good dynamic that you’re falling prey to.

[Making Chimichangas]

1 hour ago, Ric Flair said:

 

We’ve already been over whether he called ALL Mexicans rapists. I think claiming he did is a wild overstatement.

 

I’m not a fan of separating kids from their parents. But I’m also not a fan of anyone who feels like coming here simply wandering across the border, in complete violation of our laws. 

 

I wish Trump would make clear his disdain for white supremacists. 

 

But plenty of people, including many minorities, who know Trump, insist he’s no racist. My mom knows someone here in Omaha who worked for years for the Trump Organization in New York. She said Trump is the best and fairest boss she’s ever had. She’s a Democrat and voted for him for President because she likes the guy so much.

 

I have no idea if Trump is a racist. I could cobble together statements Obama made and claim he had issues with white people. Various former Presidents were uncomfortable around minorities. LBJ was famous for being incredibly racist. Some of the things Bill Clinton said about Obama were more clearly racist than anything I have ever heard Trump say.

 

So it’s more complicated than Trump - bad, Democrats - good dynamic that you’re falling prey to.

 

The bolded: Strawman 101

[Landlord]

 

6 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

 

That’s complete BS. Obama’s mainstream media coverage was 95% positive. Trump’s is 95% negative. 

 

They lose their minds when Trump posts a negative tweet. They weren’t concerned at all that Obama weaponized the federal government and sent it after hus opponents. 

 

The ridiculous hypocrisy and shameful double standard in coverage is why the newsmedia is now openly loathed by so many Americans.

 

 

You're conveniently, and mistakenly, not including conservative media coverage, which is also mainstream. 'Mainstream media' is used by conservatives, learned by the media, as a coded label that really just means "any media that isn't partisanly conservative". Which is a convenient use of language, because it allows you to completely ignore the double standards as well as the hypocrisy of selective outrage by conservative media. 

 

You're also, which you continuously do, ignoring the actual variable of the President. If a President were to, hypothetically, lie 100% of the time he speaks, then fair news coverage of that President would be 100% negative. Trump doesn't lie 100% of the time, but he says verifiably false or misleading things far more than Obama/Bush/Clinton etc. The media shouldn't give every politician a 50/50 split of positive or negative coverage; the coverage should be proportionate to the politician's governing. 

 

You're also conveniently ignoring how even despite the more negative coverage of Trump (which I completely agree exists), he also has gotten multitudes more coverage in general which has benefitted him greatly especially during the election.

 

You're also just way off on your anecdotal? or guess work numbers. Pew Research Center has done incredibly in depth studies on all of this. Here's a few links, and a few graphs:

 

http://www.journalism.org/2017/10/02/covering-president-trump-in-a-polarized-media-environment/

 

https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps-first-100-days/

 

https://www.npr.org/2017/10/02/555092743/study-news-coverage-of-trump-more-negative-than-for-other-presidents

 

http://www.journalism.org/2017/10/02/a-comparison-to-early-coverage-of-past-administrations/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One thing I will give you, however, is that news media coverage has changed dramatically towards being more focused on leadership and character vs ideology/agenda than it had with other Presidents previously, which naturally (I think you would probably agree) hurts Trump more than it would have hurt Obama/Bush/Clinton. And that's also probably because of Trump. The media across both sides of the aisle has plenty of bias towards sensationalism and outrage. Another thing I will give you is that there is a longer leash for more left-leaning media to still be seen as legitimate compared to right-leaning media.

 

However, three key caveats:

 

#1 Left-leaning and mixed audience or neutral media have been shown to practice better journalism.

 

#2 Coverage of Obama was not overwhelmingly positive, it was just overwhelmingly balanced. He most always received almost equal amounts negative, neutral, and positive coverage compared to opponents or to Trump.

 

#3 The development of more hyper-partisan "news" organizations has grown and become much more of a phenomenon every year, so more extreme coverage of the most recent President compared to past Presidents makes perfect sense. 

 

 

You're trying to use this defense of "no it's more complicated than that" but then completely failing to embrace complexity in your understanding of news coverage, and resorting to a simplistic and elementary argument of "they were so nice to Obama and they're so mean to Trump". Come on, man. You've proven yourself to be capable of nuance, which is what makes it so disheartening and frustrating all the times you fail to acknowledge it.

 

[Ric Flair]

28 minutes ago, Making Chimichangas said:

 

The bolded: Strawman 101

 

Not after reading a few dozen of your posts. What criticisms do you have of Obama? What statements did he make that you disagreed with? What policy failures do you blame him for? 

[Ric Flair]

5 minutes ago, Landlord said:

 

 

 

You're conveniently, and mistakenly, not including conservative media coverage, which is also mainstream. 'Mainstream media' is used by conservatives, learned by the media, as a coded label that really just means "any media that isn't partisanly conservative". Which is a convenient use of language, because it allows you to completely ignore the double standards as well as the hypocrisy of selective outrage by conservative media. 

 

You're also, which you continuously do, ignoring the actual variable of the President. If a President were to, hypothetically, lie 100% of the time he speaks, then fair news coverage of that President would be 100% negative. Trump doesn't lie 100% of the time, but he says verifiably false or misleading things far more than Obama/Bush/Clinton etc. The media shouldn't give every politician a 50/50 split of positive or negative coverage; the coverage should be proportionate to the politician's governing. 

 

You're also conveniently ignoring how even despite the more negative coverage of Trump (which I completely agree exists), he also has gotten multitudes more coverage in general which has benefitted him greatly especially during the election.

 

You're also just way off on your anecdotal? or guess work numbers. Pew Research Center has done incredibly in depth studies on all of this. Here's a few links, and a few graphs:

 

http://www.journalism.org/2017/10/02/covering-president-trump-in-a-polarized-media-environment/

 

https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps-first-100-days/

 

https://www.npr.org/2017/10/02/555092743/study-news-coverage-of-trump-more-negative-than-for-other-presidents

 

http://www.journalism.org/2017/10/02/a-comparison-to-early-coverage-of-past-administrations/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One thing I will give you, however, is that news media coverage has changed dramatically towards being more focused on leadership and character vs ideology/agenda than it had with other Presidents previously, which naturally (I think you would probably agree) hurts Trump more than it would have hurt Obama/Bush/Clinton. And that's also probably because of Trump. The media across both sides of the aisle has plenty of bias towards sensationalism and outrage. Another thing I will give you is that there is a longer leash for more left-leaning media to still be seen as legitimate compared to right-leaning media.

 

However, three key caveats:

 

#1 Left-leaning and mixed audience or neutral media have been shown to practice better journalism.

 

#2 Coverage of Obama was not overwhelmingly positive, it was just overwhelmingly balanced. He most always received almost equal amounts negative, neutral, and positive coverage compared to opponents or to Trump.

 

#3 The development of more hyper-partisan "news" organizations has grown and become much more of a phenomenon every year, so more extreme coverage of the most recent President compared to past Presidents makes perfect sense. 

 

 

You're trying to use this defense of "no it's more complicated than that" but then completely failing to embrace complexity in your understanding of news coverage, and resorting to a simplistic and elementary argument of "they were so nice to Obama and they're so mean to Trump". Come on, man. You've proven yourself to be capable of nuance, which is what makes it so disheartening and frustrating all the times you fail to acknowledge it.

 

 

What evidence is there that Pew is the independent and objective arbiter of these matters?

 

I absolutely see the mainstream news and everything outside of Fox and other conservative leaning news sources. The collective reach of mainstream news dwarfs that of conservative news. While Fox and other conservative news outlets tend to be pro-Trump, that’s not universally the case. Even among conservatives, there is significant disagreement about him. If you don’t visit the site, I encourage you to check out National Review, where they cover the spectrum from never Trump to Pro-Trump and everything between. 

 

Quote

Out of a total of 712 evaluative comments made on the air, only 65 were positive, or 9 percent. The rest — 647 comments — were negative, amounting to 91 percent. The ongoing Russia collusion investigation was the leading topic of choice, followed by immigration issues, the recent government shutdown, and the White House response to the Parkland student shooting.

 

“The results are essentially unchanged from the 90 percent negative coverage we documented for all of 2017, and matches the 91 percent negative coverage we tallied during the 2016 general election campaign,” said Rich Noyes, senior editor for Newsbusters.org, the analytical arm of the Media Research Center.

 

“Without question, no president has ever been on the receiving end of such hostile coverage, for such a sustained period of time, as has Trump — and the midterm elections are still eight months away,” he said.

 

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/mar/6/trump-coverage-still-90-negative-says-new-study/

 

 

[Ric Flair]

Quote

[T]he coverage of some news organizations was so negative, according to the Harvard study, that it seems hard to argue that the coverage was anywhere near a neutral presentation of facts. Assessing the tone of news coverage, the Harvard researchers found that CNN's Trump coverage was 93 percent negative, and seven percent positive. The researchers found the same numbers for NBC. 

 

Others were slightly less negative. The Harvard team found that CBS coverage was 91 percent negative and 9 percent positive. New York Times coverage was 87 percent negative and 13 percent positive. Washington Post coverage was 83 percent negative and 17 percent positive. Wall Street Journal coverage was 70 percent negative and 30 percent positive. And Fox News coverage also leaned to the negative, but only slightly: 52 percent negative to 48 percent positive. 

 

Ninety-three percent negative — that's a lot by anybody's standards. "CNN and NBC's coverage was the most unrelenting — negative stories about Trump outpaced positive ones by 13-to-1 on the two networks," the study noted. "Trump's coverage during his first 100 days set a new standard for negativity."

 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-harvard-study-cnn-nbc-trump-coverage-93-percent-negative

[Landlord]

3 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

What evidence is there that Pew is the independent and objective arbiter of these matters?

 

There's plenty.

 

• Most other independent bias and fact checking sources list them as centrist or unbiased:

 

https://www.allsides.com/news-source/pew-research

 

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/pew-research/

 

• It's a non-profit organization, and a fact tank. 

 

• It has no policy positions of any kind, nor any kind of advocation work of any kind

 

• They conduct random polling of American citizens - they don't offer assessments or interpretation of the data, they just categorize and present it

 

• Here's the anecdotal perspective of someone completely professionally qualified to have a good perspective

 

• If anything it should be biased to the right. One of it's funding sources is the Templeton Foundation, which has many conservative connections/causes and heavily promotes free markets. It's also a subsidiary of Pew Charitable Trusts, which has donated millions to TPPF, who is anti climate change, pro fossil fuels, and provided Trump's nominee for the position on White House Council on Environmental Quality.

 

 

 

3 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

I absolutely see the mainstream news and everything outside of Fox and other conservative leaning news sources. The collective reach of mainstream news dwarfs that of conservative news.

 

 

This is wrong. You're either lying, or you're mistaken. As far as broadcast networks, liberal programming on ABC/CBS/NBC have 32.8 million viewers compared to 8.5 million for Fox. On cable networks, Fox News and conservative networks have 12.9 million vs 9.6 million for CNN/MSNBC/etc. 80% of the of the top 20 radio talk shows are also conservative, and I can't find exact numbers on that but the conservative footprint there is massive. Conservative programming dominates local news as well, with Sinclair now owning so many local affiliates. Facebook is one of the main news 'sources' for both left and right people, and the amounts of likes and shares and comments and etc. for right-wing and left-wing Facebook content is also very comparable in number across the aisle.

 

 

 

3 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

While Fox and other conservative news outlets tend to be pro-Trump, that’s not universally the case.

 

While CNN and MSNBC and other liberal news outlets tend to be anti-Trump, that's not universally the case.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

If you don’t visit the site, I encourage you to check out National Review, where they cover the spectrum from never Trump to Pro-Trump and everything between. 

 

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/mar/6/trump-coverage-still-90-negative-says-new-study/

 

 

National Review, the site that self-advertises it's own conservative bias? No thanks. Even the study cited in your first link self-identifies as conservative. 

 

 

36 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-harvard-study-cnn-nbc-trump-coverage-93-percent-negative

 

So this article is actually linking a study that I already linked you. So obviously you didn't read the study, either the first time or the second time or both, otherwise you wouldn't be linking it back to me. And the thing is..., aside from yet another unapologetically conservative source (when I've given you good reliable non-partisan data, and good reason to believe it's non-partisan and reliable)... the study doesn't say anything like what their article, or more specifically their headline (which I'm pretty sure is most of all that you read) is saying it does. 

 

It does give some pretty damning numbers assessments of certain sources, but it also paints a different broader picture:

 

 

 

 

 

 

It also says things like...

 

Quote

"Have the mainstream media covered Trump in a fair and balanced way? That question cannot be answered definitively in the absence of an agreed-upon version of “reality” against which to compare Trump’s coverage. Any such assessment would also have to weigh the news media’s preference for the negative, a tendency in place long before Trump became president. Given that tendency, the fact that Trump has received more negative coverage than his predecessor is hardly surprising. The early days of his presidency have been marked by far more missteps and miss-hits, often self-inflicted, than any presidency in memory, perhaps ever."

 

Quote

"So why is Trump’s coverage so negative even though he does most of the talking? The fact is, he’s been on the defensive during most of his 100 days in office, trying to put the best face possible on executive orders, legislative initiatives, appointments, and other undertakings that have gone bad. Even Fox has not been able to save him from what analyst David Gergen called the “’worst 100 days we’ve ever seen.”

 

Quote

"If a mud fight with Trump will not serve the media’s interests, neither will a soft peddling of his coverage. Never in the nation’s history has the country had a president with so little fidelity to the facts, so little appreciation for the dignity of the presidential office, and so little understanding of the underpinnings of democracy. The media’s credibility today is at low ebb, but the Trump presidency is not the time for the press to pull back. The news media gave Trump a boost when he entered presidential politics. But a head-on collision at some point was inevitable. It’s happened, it isn’t pretty, and it isn’t over.

 

At the same time, the news media need to give Trump credit when his actions warrant it. The public’s low level of confidence in the press is the result of several factors, one of which is a belief that journalists are biased. That perception weakens the press’s watchdog role. One of the more remarkable features of news coverage of Trump’s first 100 days is that it has changed few minds about the president, for better or worse. The nation’s watchdog has lost much of its bite and won’t regain it until the public perceives it as an impartial broker, applying the same reporting standards to both parties. The news media’s exemplary coverage of Trump’s cruise missile strike on Syria illustrates the type of even-handedness that needs to be consistently and rigorously applied."

 

 

[Making Chimichangas]

1 hour ago, Ric Flair said:

 

Not after reading a few dozen of your posts. What criticisms do you have of Obama? What statements did he make that you disagreed with? What policy failures do you blame him for? 

 

Trump has been in office for over two years.  We're talking about Trump, his words, and actions.  What the previous President did in this context is completely irrelevant.

[Danny Bateman]

21 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

 

No. Each of them comported himself differently. But I’m far less concerned about Trump calling out the press or attacking someone on Twitter than about Obama turning his IRS, EPA, or Justice Department goons loose on his political enemies.

 

Citation needed.