The nation's most self-impressed journalists, the ones who strangely self-identify as "mainstream," could not bring themselves to treat the Hunter Biden trial as comparable in any way to Donald Trump's trial in Manhattan. Treating Hunter as a significant "news" subject gives them the creeps, like they've been drafted into Rupert Murdoch's army.
So it's a little shocking the Hunter trial gained about half as much coverage as Trump's -- at least through the first eight days of coverage. On the ABC, CBS and NBC morning, evening and Sunday interview shows, Trump's trial drew more than 174 minutes, while Hunter's trial drew 85 minutes. (By the Trump trial's end, they filled the air with 640 minutes.)
It's less shocking to notice the difference in tone. Trump's trial was a "criminal" trial about "hush money." On April 25, fill-in CBS anchor Margaret Brennan announced, "The former president faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business documents related to a so-called hush money payment to a porn star." Other stories fussed that Trump was bullying and threatening witnesses and court staff.
Hunter Biden stories were loaded with empathy. On June 3, ABC's Terry Moran relayed: "President Biden released a statement standing by his only surviving son, saying in part 'I have boundless love for my son.'" CBS reporter Norah O'Donnell echoed him that night on "the president's only surviving son." On June 10, NBC fill-in anchor Tom Llamas began: "For the first time, the child of a sitting president facing a potential criminal conviction. Right now, a jury deliberating the fate of Hunter Biden, the sole surviving son of the president."
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Hunter Biden is 54 and network anchors refer to him as a "child."
The contrast in tone tells you that the media elites loathe Trump but treat the Biden family like they're close friends who they want to surround and protect. There was a sense of glee when Democrats began crowing about Trump the "convicted felon." Then came the sorrow that they only had 11 days to celebrate before the president's son drew the same label.
Then came the stubborn facts. Conservative outlets like the New York Post were more interested in how prosecutors based their case on the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop, and the court verified it as evidence. CBS never mentioned this. ABC gave 10 seconds, and NBC offered 30 seconds acknowledging the laptop's use in court. None of them revisited their 2020 performance, when they all robotically regurgitated the Biden campaign spin that the laptop was "garbage" carrying the "earmarks of a Russian information operation."
Prosecutors not only mined the laptop but used Hunter's addiction memoir "Beautiful Things" against him. That was quite a backfire, after the pro-Biden networks (and their affiliated comedians like Jimmy Kimmel) gushed over Hunter's memoir as "catharsis" for the 50-something child. Back in 2021, CBS donated 25 minutes of airtime to syrupy interview segments with the addict. Maybe "donated" is the wrong word since CBS-affiliated Simon & Schuster published the book.
These guilty verdicts will not affect the pro-Biden media's incessant efforts to tout the Biden family as a selling point for the Democrats. They couldn't stop talking after the verdict about how the first lady was in the courtroom almost every day, and how the president scores points with voters when he talks about how much he loves his "only surviving son."
They will keep spinning in desperation that Hunter Biden's epic crack-and-hookers binges somehow make the Bidens more sympathetic to Americans with addicts in their family. Journalists were given cocaine-powdered lemons, and the lemonade they are making is a heady brew. But not everyone wants to drink it.
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