OPINION:
President Biden has received the least negative coverage from the mainstream media in his first days in office than any other president who Pew Research has studied.
Analyzing the coverage among seven news organizations, Mr. Biden received only a 19% negative assessment compared to President Donald Trump’s 62%, President Barack Obama’s 20%, President George W. Bush’s 28% and President Bill Clinton’s 28%, Pew Research found.
Mr. Biden has received 27% positive coverage and 54% neutral coverage, compared to Mr. Trump’s 5% positive coverage and 33% neutral in their respective first 60 days in office, the study shows.
For many critics of the mainstream media, these findings are obvious, but still, they are nice to have confirmed.
During Mr. Trump’s first days in office, the media was obsessed with his lack of leadership and character, with 69% of stories investigating the now-debunked Russia collusion narrative or his “chaotic” governing style. Only 31% focused on Mr. Trump’s policies and agenda for the American people.
For Mr. Biden the reverse is true. Sixty-seven percent of his coverage is focused on his agenda with only 33% dedicated to his leadership and character, Pew found.
Mr. Biden’s radical tax-and-spend proposals have been defined by the mainstream media as “transformational,” akin to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “pursing popular programs”; how his coronavirus response has positioned the U.S. as a “global leader”; and the immigration crisis he’s causing at the southern border? Well, both Politico and The Associated Press have restricted their reporters from using the word “crisis” to define it.
The media has always been more gracious to Democrats in their coverage than Republicans, but after Mr. Trump, their bias has never been so overt and open.
Journalists have abandoned their responsibility to scrutinize those in power, and with Mr. Biden, they are actually lobbying on behalf of his administration.
They worked with his White House to smear Georgia’s election-integrity laws, calling them worse than Jim Crow. After waiting longer than any president in history to hold a press conference, Mr. Biden was showered by the media with questions about abolishing the filibuster — as if cheering him on to do it — so it would be easier to pass his radical agenda.
Heck, PBS’ White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor used her time to insinuate the reason there are so many migrants crossing the southern border was because of President Biden’s decent and moral character.
They then refuse to report on the unpopular aspects of Mr. Biden’s agenda — like how the U.S. is going to pay for his massive $6.1 trillion in new spending; the drawbacks of federalizing state-run elections; the human-smuggling operations proliferating at our southern border; and the spike in crime rates in our major cities that have come as a direct result of the defund the police movement.
The Washington Post has even abandoned its presidential fact-checking tracker, which was used as a cudgel during the Trump administration to point out every exaggeration, misstatement or mistake by the former president. Glenn Kessler, The Post’s lead fact-checker said: “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.”
So, in other words, no need to hold them accountable.
It’s no wonder why trust in the mainstream media is at an all-time low. The Pew study quantifies what has been observed by nearly all outside of the Democratic Party and establishment: Our media largely consists of partisan hacks, left of center, who lobby on behalf of a progressive agenda and openly root for Democrats.
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