They are the enemies of the people. They’re cry-babies. They’re corrupt. They’re biased. You all know this. They whined that there was no daily White House press briefing. Now, we have President Trump, Vice President Pence, and their team fighting the Wuhan coronavirus giving daily updates and now they’re complaining. There is a possibility that some liberal networks could cut the cord on airing these briefings (via Daily Beast):
On the one hand, their ratings have never been higher, and viewers’ appetites for the live sessions have shown no signs of dwindling. On the other hand, journalists and executives at MSNBC, CNN and the often Trump-friendly Fox News—which scored an impressive 6.2 million viewers for Sunday’s installment of the Trump show, according to Nielsen—are increasingly facing the likelihood that they are becoming an uncritical and unvetted transmission belt for propaganda and misinformation.
“These White House sessions—ostensibly meant to give the public critical and truthful information about this frightening crisis—are in fact working against that end,” wrote Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan, summarizing such concerns. “Rather, they have become a daily stage for Trump to play his greatest hits to captive audience members. They come in search of life-or-death information, but here’s what they get from him instead: Self-aggrandizement… Media-bashing… Exaggeration and outright lies.”
In an echo of the self-criticism expressed during the 2016 presidential race, when the cable networks repeatedly broadcast Trump’s campaign rallies live and unexpurgated, top MSNBC anchors have already argued publicly that their own network should not air the president’s pandemic musings in full.
[…]
Privately, several staffers at CNN and MSNBC have acknowledged that airing Trump’s pressers live and in full likely amplifies the spread of misinformation about the disease and its potential cure. In one instance, Trump’s enthusiastic promotion of a malaria medicine, chloroquine, as therapy for COVID-19, reportedly prompted an elderly couple to take a poisonous version of the chemical, resulting in the wife being placed in an intensive-care unit while her husband died.
An NBC News insider, however, said the White House briefings should be not be ignored, but instead thoroughly covered and aired, albeit with journalistic vetting and fact checking. “I completely get the criticism of the performance,” this person said. “But let’s remember that the White House press corps absolutely torched the Trump White House for eliminating the daily briefings. Now there’s a high-profile daily press briefing that often includes the president and vice president, so you can’t have it both ways.”
Again, that couple ingested fish tank cleaner—and no one told them to take it. This was straight fake news the liberal media pushed in order to embarrass this administration, whose numbers have soared through the roof regarding how they’ve handled this situation. MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell lamented how Trump’s approval ratings have spiked amid this crisis. Still, if you watch CNN or MSNBC, and I hope you don’t unless you have to in order to catch their nonsense, then, you’re probably going to see more cutaways (via NYT):
Mr. Trump’s attacks on journalists have prompted outrage from First Amendment groups. The chief executive of PEN America, Suzanne Nossel, called Mr. Trump’s remarks at the briefings “an appalling daily spectacle and an international embarrassment.”
The White House, in turn, has been critical of TV networks that do not do its bidding. On Monday, after CNN and MSNBC cut away from the final portion of Mr. Trump’s briefing, a White House spokesman, Judd Deere, called the move “pretty disgraceful.”
CNN responded that the network “will make our own editorial decisions.” MSNBC said it had cut away only “because the information no longer appeared to be valuable to the important ongoing discussion around public health.”
Yes, yes, it’s always about them, right? How the media gets its feelings hurt when the president rightfully calls them out on their crap. Oh, and this piece from The New York Times also cites the Arizona couple who ingested fish tank cleaner.
In the new Gallup poll, 60% of independents and more than 1 in 4 Democrats approve of the job Trump is doing on the coronavirushttps://t.co/CZQ7XuBtpM
— Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) March 25, 2020
Now, these reactions were expected, but why are they so vocal now—the press—when it comes to bashing them for whatever reason and whining about how Trump calls them all awful (he’s not wrong)? Oh, yeah—I forgot—Trump’s poll numbers are through the roof when it comes to him being seen as a leader in tackling this crisis. Even CNN had to cover that—and over a quarter of Democrats agree with this White House’s handling of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak (via CNN) [emphasis mine]:
In a new Gallup poll, 49% approve of the job Trump is doing as president while 45% disapprove, matching the highest his approval rating has ever been in Gallup surveys. A Monmouth University poll released on Monday showed Trump at 46% approval, again the best he has done in that poll in more than three years.
What accounts for Trump's rise? Simple: His response to the coronavirus crisis.
In the Gallup poll, 60% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing in handling the crisis while 38% disapprove of how he has done. Six in 10 independents approve of how Trump has done on the coronavirus as do more than 1 in 4 (27%) of Democrats.
Yeah, I could see why people in those newsrooms are starting to panic. They wanted to trash the markets to soften this White House up for the death blow. Instead, people realize this virus isn’t Trump’s fault and they support his efforts to combat this disease. And alas, you see the disconnect between regular people and the super-liberal and elitist media, who call these pressers “a grim Trumpian sideshow.” Please keep ranting liberal media morons. You’re only boosting his numbers.
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