Why the Mainstream Media in the US is So Messed Up

They are deferential to Donald Trump while slanting the news in an effort to get him back in the White House

In some ways it's a sad post for me to write. I graduated from the University of Maryland with a major in journalism and a minor in government and politics. I grew up in an era where there were no 24-hour news channels nor was there such a thing as the Internet. Most people got their news the following ways: reading the daily newspaper, reading weekly newsmagazines (such as Time and Newsweek), and watching the evening news on network television. The evening news broadcast lasted only a half-an-hour and the news anchor basically gave the straight facts of a certain story with very little opinion. Likewise the print media gave the basic facts of a story while opinions were found only in the editorial page.

There were opinion shows and political talk shows but they were mostly shown on Sunday mornings. I rarely watched those growing up because I was usually attending church.

I discovered that I had a flair for writing in high school when I worked on the school newspaper. It inspired me to study journalism in college. During my years at the University of Maryland I wrote articles for the campus newspaper known as The Diamondback and I even did a summer internship with a now-defunct community newspaper based in Silver Spring, Maryland known as The Suburban Record.

When I was studying journalism little did I know that the whole media industry was going to be so affected that I ended up never getting a paying job even remotely related to my major. It didn't help that both of my parents and my then-fiance all began to pressure me to get a job—any job—ASAP just two or three months after I graduated. At times I felt like they were all dog piling on me. I had even attempted to break my engagement to my fiance, despite the fact that he had a well-paying job and he had a famous Hungarian grandfather, because I grew tired of the pressure he placed on me but he talked me into changing my mind. I ended up getting the first of a series of clerical jobs just to shut all three of them up. I married the grandson of that famous Hungarian diabetes researcher Michael Somogyi but I ended up divorced after he literally ran away from home abruptly when he left me for a friend of ours who had long struggled with very severe mental health problems. (It's just like this book written by Vikki Stark called Runaway Husbands in real life.) He also ran away from home just three months after I underwent hip surgery and three days after we celebrated Christmas together.

The closest I've ever come to doing work related to my major were a few years when I helped out with editing my church's newsletter while the congregation was trying to make do without a church administrator due to tight finances at the time. I also occasionally write something for the local community newspaper but that paper is completely volunteer-run.

The Rise of Media Consolidation

Even if I had landed a job in journalism I don't know if I would have remained a journalist due to what happened in that field. It started with Ronald Reagan as president when he had the FCC abolish the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, which required the news media to take a fair and balanced approach to the news, especially on controversial issues.

The Reagan Administration also began to loosen regulations on the maximum amount of media companies that a single person or corporation could own. Over the last 40 years, Congress and presidents have aided and abetted the consolidation of media ownership and the consequential weakening the public's access to balanced and reliable news reporting.

The result of all those media mergers is staggering. In 1985 there were 50 companies in charge of most of American media. Now there are just six companies who control 90% of the media in the United States.

Every time there is a media merger, the first jobs that usually get cut are the journalists and editors working in the newsroom. It's very likely that had I decided to stick up for myself, gone through with breaking that engagement, and even move to a different part of the country so I could pursue a journalism career, I would have probably ended up losing my job due to a media merger and I would've had a very difficult time finding new work in my field. I probably would've left journalism so I could find any kind of job for survival.

The rise of the Internet, especially news aggregate sites and social media, have only exacerbated the situation. Why should a person buy the latest issue of The Washington Post when that person could get news for free from The Huffington Post? Why should a person pay for a classified ad in a newspaper when that person can post the same ad on Craigslist for free? It has led to traditional media losing profits.

News As Entertainment

The media consolidations had another effect. The corporate owners, many of whom had MBA degrees with zero news experience, began to view news not as something that had the lofty goal of informing the general public on serious matters but something different. These owners viewed news as entertainment because it was the best way to increase profits. A news story would be highlighted based more on getting huge ratings instead of something important that citizens need to be aware of.

One such example was when a former football player, broadcaster, and actor named O.J. Simpson was arrested and put on trial for murdering his ex-wife and her friend. It created this big media frenzy where his trial was broadcast live and numerous newspaper and magazine stories were devoted to the case. The Wikipedia noted that the nightly news from the TV networks devoted more coverage to the trial than to the Bosnian War and the Oklahoma City bombing combined. (And more people died in those two events than the number of people that O.J. Simpson was accused of killing.)

The legacy of O.J. Simpson's murder trial continues to this day as the media focuses on a story based on how much profits the media's corporate owners can rake in. The average American is more likely to be familiar with Kim Kardashian than know who is the current leader of Moldova (Maia Sandu) or Germany (Olaf Scholz).

The decades-long trend in media consolidation coupled with layoffs and declining profits is probably the main reason why journalism was ranked number one as the most regretted college major in this survey that was conducted by ZipRecruiter.

If you want to do an even deeper dive on the topic of media consolidation since the 1980s, I highly recommend this three part series called The Monopoly on Your Mind:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The Rise of Donald Trump

When the media consolidations began in the 1980s Donald Trump was a real estate developer in New York who had just published his first book, The Art of the Deal. He reached out to the media frequently, who found him to be totally charming. The interviews fueled sales of his book while Trump's natural charm led to increased sales for print media and higher ratings for TV and radio. It was the perfect symbiotic relationship. Donald Trump soon became a business celebrity who constantly tried to remain in the media eye as much as possible.

There were also some tough times for Trump when he experienced his first major public fall from grace after he filed the first of his multiple bankruptcies in 1991.

The mainstream media frequently ignores or forgets the fact that Donald Trump first ran for president in the 2000 election on the Reform Party ticket. That campaign turned out to be short-lived and it was mostly due to the fact that the Reform Party was waning as a viable political party due to infighting.

Trump stayed out of electoral politics for the next several years. In 2004 Donald Trump's popularity began a new renaissance when he became the host of the reality TV show The Apprentice and it became a major hit. Trump would continue to host both The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice for a number of years.

In 2011 Donald Trump flirted with the idea of running for president as a Republican. He gave speeches where he seemed to agree with the birther conspiracy theory surrounding Barack Obama, the first African American president, which says that President Obama was born outside of the United States in Kenya, which makes him ineligible to be president under the US Constitution. (While Barack Obama's father was born in Kenya, Obama himself was born in Hawaii, which made him eligible to become president.)

His speeches attracted more media attention than the first time he ran in 2000. Here was the star of a hugely popular network reality TV show who was seriously considering running for president. When he didn't give a definite answer as to whether he was really going to run or not, it made the media even more eager as they kept Trump's name in the news on a frequent basis. It was only when NBC looked into replacing Trump as the host of the upcoming season of The Celebrity Apprentice that Trump decided against seeking the Republican nomination that year.

Trump as the Mainstream Media's Perfect Candidate

Donald Trump's status as a reality TV star really affected the media's attitude towards him. When Trump ran for president in 2016 he was given more coverage by the mainstream media than all of the other candidates combined. Then-CBS Chairman Les Moonves justified the excessive coverage of Trump by saying “It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS.” He added, “Donald's place in this election is a good thing. Man, who would have expected the ride we're all having right now? ... The money's rolling in and this is fun. I've never seen anything like this, and this going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It's a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going.”

After Trump was defeated in 2020 he never went away from the public spotlight like other presidents did when they leave office. He continued to make social media posts and give interviews to friendly media outlets like Fox News. There was frequent speculation in the media as to whether Trump was going to run again in 2024.

Even while Trump was out of office the Republicans who were most loyal to Donald Trump have managed to redefine the Trump-led January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol from being a direct assault on democracy and the rule of law (which it was) to being something that wasn't really an insurrection but it was simply a case of a few patriots had decided to party at the US Capitol and simply got carried away with it but it wasn't really that bad. Why it was no more harmful than a few people getting drunk or stoned at a local concert. And the mainstream media have gone along with it. The mainstream media rarely challenges a Republican politician's assertion on how it really wasn't an attempted coup d'etat. Nor do they challenge these politicians’ claim that the people who are currently serving in prison for their role in the January 6 insurrection are actually “political prisoners” instead of the criminals that they really are.

When Trump announced that he was running this year the mainstream media once again provided deferential coverage. The mainstream media coverage of Donald Trump has been so deferential and fawning that it was the subject of this scathing report that was published in the Columbia Journalism Review.

And this deferential treatment has continued. When the Pentagon released a report on the massive amount of drugs like morphine, fentanyl, and ketamine that were prescribed to ineligible staffers during Trump's time in the White House, the media downplayed it.

The mainstream media has ignored the impact that COVID-19 has had on the electorate since the pandemic began in 2020. Donald Trump politicized the virus into some kind of a loyalty test and his most devoted followers refused to wear masks and practice social distancing, which resulted in over a million American deaths. As this video explains, COVID-19 is still taking mostly Republican lives because Republicans are less likely to get vaccinated, wear masks, and take other precautions.

The Mainstream Media Prefers Donald Trump Over Joe Biden

This is how bad this deferential treatment of Trump has become. In one weekend alone the mainstream media published a series of 81 articles questioning Joe Biden's age and whether he is still capable of continuing to be president. Meanwhile they are downplaying the fact that the Republicans are about to nominate a man who said that he would rule as a dictator only on day one of his presidency and he created an insurrection on January 6, 2021.

In addition, for all the speculation about whether Joe Biden is too old to occupy the White House, the mainstream media seems to ignore or downplay the more frequent gaffes and slurring that Trump has made in his most recent campaign speeches. The mainstream media hasn't even speculated why that's the case. Perhaps it's all those years of rumored Adderall abuse coupled with the stress from his ongoing legal problems, his fast food diet, his lack of exercise, and his family history of dementia (which affected the final years of Trump's late father, Fred Trump) that are all finally catching up with him. You won't know if you only follow the mainstream media because they are ignoring it.

Lawrence O'Donnell, who is one of the very few mainstream media personalities who has openly questioned Trump’s mental fitness, provided a clip on his MSNBC show The Last Word of one of Trump's more recent speeches with an earlier interview that Trump gave for a 1990s documentary on the history of New York City and the contrast between the two clips couldn't be more jarring. Trump sounded so rational and clear-headed in that earlier interview compared to now.

The Mainstream Media Prefers Donald Trump Over Nikki Haley

This media deference to Trump has gotten to the point where they seem to exaggerate the news because the corporations who own the media are so desperate to see Trump win. A case in point is the South Carolina Republican primary where former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley lost to Donald Trump. While the media made it sound like he really trounced her with something like 80-90 percent of the voters went with Trump, this link shows the reality that Trump only won by almost 60 percent. Trump is in a position where he barely wins the primaries in each state yet the mainstream media is referring to them as big victories. The mainstream media seems to be so desperate to see Trump win that they have sent reporters to the Midwest and South (the so-called Heartland of America) to interview angry GOP voters.

The Mainstream Media May Love Trump But Trump Doesn't Loves Them Back

The big irony about all this deference is that Donald Trump has openly accused the media of being “enemies of the people” who churn out what Trump calls “fake news.” Despite this hostility, the media is still being deferential towards Trump.

One such example is Megyn Kelly. In 2015 she was the host of a presidential debate where Trump attacked her for menstruating. He said, “She had blood coming out of her eyes. Or blood coming out of her whereever.” Even though Trump has never apologized for his sexist comment, Kelly continues to reach out to him. Last year she had him on her Sirius XM Radio show where she praised him for that 2015 debate, telling him that he handled it well. After that interview Trump blasted Kelly by calling her “nasty.” Once again Trump has never apologized to her for that insult. Despite the fact that Trump is openly hostile towards her, Kelly has praised Trump for being compelling, funny, and interesting. She remains among his staunchest defenders. She recently tweeted “With the Trump immunity case being accepted by SCOTUS & what’s happening in Georgia, Trump may well have pulled the inside straight he needed to beat these cases. NY is a joke. GA is dying/severely delayed. FL ain’t happening b/4 Nov. And now, neither is J6 DC case. Incredible.”

Megyn Kelly is just like the abused wife who justifies her husband giving her a black eye while clinging to him despite his violence towards her. Sadly she's not an outlier. There are plenty of other media people who ignores or minimizes Trump's open hostility towards them in the hopes of getting a scoop or they'll somehow gain access to Trump’s inner circle.

The Media's Overreliance on Increasingly Inaccurate Polls

Then there are the polls that the mainstream media say that Trump is outpouring Biden. Molly Jong-Fast calls them “junk polls” for a good reason. Polls have a history of being inaccurate going as far back as the notorious “Dewey Defeats Truman” newspaper headline in 1948. In 1995 polling wrongly predicted that Bob Dole would defeat Bill Clinton. The use of junk polls have grown worse in recent years. In 2016 polls predicted that Hillary Clinton would be elected president, which turned out to be wrong. In 2018 the media provided polling that said that a “red wave” would materialize where Republicans would add seats in both houses of Congress. That failed to materialize. Now the media is trying polls again to convince voters that Trump has a lead over Joe Biden.

Why Does the Media Love Trump So Much?

Why is the mainstream media trying so very hard to make Donald Trump president again even though Trump has shown hostility towards the media? One is that the corporations who own the mainstream media are hoping for huge tax cuts and Trump is more likely to give them what they want. They are willing to overlook Trump's media hostility and his statement that he will rule as a dictator only on Day 1 for those precious tax breaks.

The bad thing is that the mainstream media has a history of underestimating actual dictators. One example is that The New York Times first reported in 1922 that Adolf Hitler’s anti-semitism wasn't as bad as it sounded. Talk about a really bad take on Hitler! Now, over 102 years later, The New York Times is being taken to task once again for underestimating the potential threat of a second Trump term, including dictatorship.

The Election as a Soap Opera

Additionally, as I wrote in this post earlier, the mainstream media is more interested in making huge profits than in informing citizens on the major issues of the day. They pick news to hype based more on getting attention than actually providing citizens with information.

The mainstream media has decided that doing stories about polls would provide a soap opera element to the elections that would hopefully attract enough attention to make profits. They don’t seem to care that their polling data has become more inaccurate with each passing year nor will they entertain the idea that the media will be embarrassed once again if Joe Biden ends up getting reelected despite polling data that tells them otherwise. If they keep on saying that Trump is leading in the polls or wondering if Biden is senile then it creates a soap opera that they can tantalize people with. The bad thing is that it's done at the expense of informing citizens about policy and where the candidates stand on certain issues.

Plus there is the rise of right-wing media, such as Fox News, which seems to function as propaganda for Donald Trump in much the same way that the Kremlin propagandists serve to show Vladimir Putin in a positive light. If you want to do an even deeper dive on that issue, I highly recommend reading this article in The New Republic.

There are other ways that the mainstream media is trying to turn this year's election into some kind of a soap opera in the pursuit of profits for their corporate owners. There's a method for playing up Joe Biden's faults far more than Donald Trump's. As this link puts it:

“If they want to obsess over President Biden’s age and mental acuity, they should also obsess over Trump’s age and mental acuity in the same way…Do you know why they don’t? When they cover Biden, they get clicks from his supporters who are upset *AND* clicks from people who want to read negative things about Biden. Trump supporters, on the other hand, won’t click on bad Trump stories – denying reality is kind of their thing – so it doesn’t increase clicks for NYT or any other publication. It truly is all about the clicks.”

The Mainstream Media Trying to Make Biden's Family to be Equally as Bad as Trump's Family

Another example is the mainstream media deciding to judge a candidate's worth based on the actions of the candidate's relatives, which provides yet another soap opera angle that they hope will attract attention and it results in profits.

In the recent civil trial in New York, Donald Trump wasn't the only one who's accused of fraud. His two oldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, were also accused of fraud as well. And that's not an isolated instance. During Trump's term in the White House his two oldest sons together with daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner had profited so much from the Trump Administration in dubious ways that The Boston Globe described it as “A sordid family affair.”

So the mainstream media figured that if Donald Trump has troubled relatives, Joe Biden must also have troubled relatives as well. The Republicans tried putting Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, on trial for allegedly accepting a $5 million bribe through a corrupt Ukrainian deal but the case against him fell apart due to Russian disinformation. The media is so desperate to equate Biden's family with Trump's family in the crookedness level that Jonathan Turley went back generations to find that Joe Biden's great-great grandfather, Moses Robinette, was convicted of attempted murder.

Basically back in 1864 Moses Robinette was at a restaurant where, after drinking too much alcohol, he got in a drunken brawl with another man and Robinette stabbed the other man with a knife a few times. The other man survived the stabbing. Robinette was sentenced to two years of hard labor but his sentence was cut short because he received a pardon from President Abraham Lincoln. The case of Moses Robinette may be an interesting read but that long ago 160-year-old murder attempt is completely irrelevant to the issue of whether his great-great grandson should be elected to a second term in 2024.

The Bottom Line

Donald Trump has stated his intentions to rule as a dictator while praising authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. That is a threat to democracy and the rule of law and the media is being complicit in this. If Trump gets reelected and actually does all the things that he says he will do, you can be damned sure that he will go after any mainstream media outlets who doesn't toe the line 100 percent. His idol, Vladimir Putin, has managed to close down all of the independent media companies in Russia so the only ones that are left basically parrots Kremlin propaganda. I'm going to end this post with a link to a great open letter to the mainstream media urging them to start taking the election seriously and take a hard look at Donald Trump's threat to rule as a dictator.

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