The mainstream media’s role in shaping electoral politics cannot be understated. Not only can they choose how much exposure a certain candidate receives, they also decide which stories to pursue and which to bury.
This was, more or less, Sen. Ted Cruz’s analysis on CBS’s “Face The Nation” Sunday of the media’s role in shaping both the success and ultimate failure of Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election cycle.
Cruz said that thanks to their nonstop coverage of Trump, he’s received “hundreds of millions of dollars of free advertising.”
The media has also turned a temporary blind eye to the skeletons in his closet, Cruz argued, which they’ll expose if he becomes the nominee.
"I think an awful lot of reporters — I can't tell you how many media outlets I hear, you know, have this great exposé on Donald, on different aspects of his business dealings or his past, but they said, 'You know what? We're going to hold it to June or July,'" he said.
"And all of the attacks on Donald that the media is not talking about now, you'd better believe come September, October, November — if he were the nominee — every day on the nightly news would be taking Donald apart," he added.
And why would the media do this? To help Hillary Clinton, of course. Poll after poll after poll shows that when matched up against the former secretary of state, Clinton nearly always comes out on top.
"Hillary would wallop him," Cruz said.
"Donald may be the only person on the face of the planet that Hillary Clinton can beat."
Cruz pointed to the fact that more pressure has not been put on Trump to release his tax returns or to reveal his off-the-record comments with The New York Times regarding his immigration policy.
"As Mitt Romney rightly observed, the fact that Donald won't hand over his tax returns suggests there's a bombshell in there," Cruz said.