As if there was any last doubt remaining, now everyone hates the media.
This may sound like familiar news, and in the tense atmosphere surrounding Donald Trump and his campaign, and especially in the wake of the assassination attempt, we are largely to blame for our credibility plummeting.
Of course, Republicans and conservatives have felt for decades that they have not been treated fairly by the media, which many now see as pawns of the other party, but it is Democrats and liberals who currently control the White House and are increasingly fed up with media coverage.
New technology allows both sides to sidestep the formidable mainstream media and reach voters directly through social media and their own videos, which could then be amplified on television and the web without the hassle of reporters asking questions.
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Shown alongside MSNBC host Joy Reid, US President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and US Senator J.D. Vance. (Getty Images)
Take Trump’s new running mate, J.D. Vance, who was picked in part for his stellar TV performance. When asked by Sean Hannity in 2016 about the nasty things he said about the former president, including calling him a “sarcastic jerk” and an “American Hitler,” Vance admitted to it and declared:
“I believed the lies and distortions of the media. I believed the idea that he was somehow totally different from everyone else and would be a terrible threat to democracy. It was a joke.”
The Ohio senator then smoothly shifted focus, saying, “Joe Biden is someone who is trying to put his political opponents in jail. Joe Biden is someone who is trying to undermine law and order in America.”
Vance criticized Vice President Harris, saying, “For years, every leading Democrat has been on TV, on the radio and in the newspapers telling us that Joe Biden can do the job of president, and that he’s doing a good job. But it turns out they lied. And they should be punished for lying to our faces.”
Punish them? How exactly?
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Republican Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, President Trump’s pick for vice president, arrives on the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
This was reminiscent of when Trump said NBC and CNN should have their broadcast licenses revoked or other action taken against them for ignoring his Iowa caucus victory speech. When I asked him about this during our Mar-a-Lago interview, he only spoke about the unfairness of not giving him the spotlight he deserved.
Trump is in a special category because he has constantly denounced the national media as the “enemy of the people” and attacked journalists by name, quickly demoting them to “third-rate reporters” and their institutions to “failures.” Meanwhile, the former president sees himself as a counterpunch to nine years of endless media attacks portraying him as a dictator and an authoritarian, a Hitler or a Mussolini, someone who would destroy the fabric of democracy.
Now let’s switch to the other side.
In an often cringey interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Trump defended his own mental acuity, questioning Biden about what Trump said on his own bad night.
“Why isn’t the media saying anything about the lies he told? I haven’t heard anything about it.”
“We have,” Holt said, “and we covered many of the issues that you raised in that debate.”
“No, it’s not.”
“We provide it,” Holt said.
“Oh, God loves you,” the president said in an exasperated voice.
In an exclusive interview on Monday, Biden spoke to NBC’s Lester Holt, asking about media coverage of the first presidential debate. (NBC Screenshot)
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Biden, naturally, loves this storyline, which suggests the media is shirking its duties because of the lower standards being applied to Trump.
Some of the president’s left-leaning allies have also expressed distaste for the fourth estate.
“There’s a deep concern and a deep distrust, not of us at this table, not of us at MSNBC, but of the media as a whole,” MSNBC host Joy Reid said.
We at MSNBC are not! I loved that part.
Her frustration is that “the media will try to convince people that what they’ve been experiencing for the last five or six years didn’t happen.”
She continued, “And people are concerned and expressing concern that we are not the guardians of memory, that we are allowing Donald Trump, who is, you know, basking in the glory and grandeur of his party, to rewrite himself as both a hero and a victim… And that that will happen without the guardians saying, ‘Wait, stop!’ and that the media will acquiesce to this rewriting.”
On what planet is the media so hung up on the idea that the events of the last six years “didn’t happen”?
And in what galaxy does the media quietly buy into the idea that Trump can “rewrite” history?
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Reid uttered those words Monday in her first show since the former president was nearly assassinated live on air.
There is no sign of sympathy, only righteous anger in attacking the media.
