How the US media is framing the presidential election

Trump has had an acrimonious relationship with the media generally and individual journalists.

US President Donald Trump acknowledges the audience after taking the oath of office as his wife Melania (L) and daughter Tiffany watch during inauguration ceremonies swearing in Trump as the 45th president of the United States on the West Front of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, January 20, 2017.
Reuters

US President Donald Trump acknowledges the audience after taking the oath of office as his wife Melania (L) and daughter Tiffany watch during inauguration ceremonies swearing in Trump as the 45th president of the United States on the West Front of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, January 20, 2017.

The past four years have been an eventful period for the US media with President Donald Trump finding himself in frequent run-ins with major news outlets.

Trump has railed against the ‘fake news lamestream media’ and even labeled the media “enemy of the American People” in his attacks against news outlets.

Some of the president’s confrontations with reporters have gone down in journalistic annals for not just their entertainment value but also their complete lack of precedence.

One such example was Trump’s exchange with CNN reporter Jim Acosta in November 2018, which resulted in revocation of the journalist’s White House credentials.

Acosta challenged Trump on his characterisation of a migrant caravan traveling from Central America to the US as an ‘invasion’. In a subsequent war of words, Trump called the journalist a “rude, terrible person” and a female aide attempted to grab the microphone off the CNN reporter.

The exchange was one of many and it contributed to a trend, which had the UN raising concerns about freedom of press in the country.

Trump, for his part, accused media outlets of affording him a level of scrutiny it did not apply to his predecessors, as well as ignoring his economic achievements.

But concerns about free press aside, news outlets have also benefited with a surge in ratings brought about by the president’s many controversies.

The conservative Fox News channel drew 17 percent more viewers in the first month of Trump’s presidency when compared to the previous year. Its liberal rival, MSNBC, doubled its number of viewers.

The New York Times has also enjoyed a surge in subscribers since the Trump presidency began.

Despite the mixed blessings Trump’s presidency has brought, US outlets are divided along ideological lines.

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How the media outlets are lining up

The largest conservative media network, Fox News, has been topping its website coverage with videos echoing concerns Trump has raised about ballot fraud.

Its top video at the time of publication was one of Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, warning that the Trump campaign was ‘ready’ to challenge the validity of ballots.

Many analysts see the comments regarding fraud as a sign of potential legal wrangling over the results, should Trump lose against Biden.

The New York Times, which prides itself on an impartial, if not liberal perspective, framed its election editorial in terms of an existential threat to US democracy.

“The American experiment has taken a beating, but there’s a chance to renew our democracy,” the paper said in the opinion piece.

It cited purported incidents of Trump condoning violence, Republican attempts to invalidate votes and other voter suppression tactics.

The Washington Post, which carries a similar editorial stance to the New York Times, went in even harder, it headed its editorial with the title: “We can defeat Trump’s lies and lawlessness. We have to vote.”

In a scathing piece, the paper slammed Trump for his ‘lies’, and especially his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 237,000 Americans have died of the coronavirus since it spread from China at the start of the year. The figure is the highest of any country in the world.

The Economist led its editorial with ‘Why it has to be Biden’. It is the same story, for outlet after outlet. 

On the surface, this unanimity may be a universal indictment of Trump’s performance but another way of looking at it could be a uniformity in the mindset of American news publications.

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