OPINION:
Over and over again, I, and many others, have stated that President Donald Trump has received the most hostile press coverage of any sitting president in U.S. history. Democrats laughed and claimed that former President Barack Obama was treated worse, but the facts don’t lie.
All you have to do is take a look at the recently released report from Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy by Professor Thomas E. Patterson, titled “News Coverage of Donald Trump’s First 100 Days.”
According to the report, “Trump has received unsparing coverage for most weeks of his presidency, without a single major topic where Trump’s coverage, on balance, was more positive than negative, setting a new standard for unfavorable press coverage of a president.”
Not a single major topic of more positive than negative coverage. That is insane. In fact, when they averaged out the tone of news coverage during his first 100 days, Mr. Trump received 80 percent negative coverage.
Let’s compare this to some previous presidents in their first 100 days in office. Mr. Obama received only 41 percent negative coverage. Former President George W. Bush received only 57 percent negative coverage. And, former President Bill Clinton received only 60 percent negative coverage. The hostility for our president is obvious and the Democrats claim that Mr. Obama was treated worse more often is clearly wrong.
Now, let’s break the report down even further and take a look at specific news outlets. On CNN, NBC and CBS, Mr. Trump’s coverage was negative over 90 percent of the time. The 80 percent negative news coverage of Mr. Trump in the overall average was largely brought by Fox News Channel, which came in at only 52 percent of negative coverage.
Finally, let’s take a look at Mr. Trump’s negative news coverage by topic, On immigration, he received negative coverage a whopping 96 percent of the time. He also faced negative coverage over 80 percent of the time on health care, Russia and the election, international trade, his personal background, personnel, fitness for office and other foreign/defense issues. Again, Fox News Channel pulled these averages down with much less negative coverage than the other outlets.
“Trump’s coverage during his first 100 days was negative even by the standards of today’s hyper-critical press,” the report says.
They are right. The facts are clear, and there is not a doubt in my mind that Mr. Trump’s claims of unfair treatment by the media are true, which leaves us asking the question: What is the job of journalists in the media? Last time I checked, disparaging the president of the United States was not a part of the description.
Wake up, America. The time to speak up is now.
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