America’s most prestigious media outlets reported on March 16 that former President Donald Trump promised a “bloodbath” in America if he isn’t reelected president in November.
The latest cycle of news, say media observers and conservative press critics, is evidence of both the media’s longstanding general bias against President Trump and its growing rejection of objectivity.
At a rally near Dayton, Ohio, in support of Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, President Trump spoke about automobile manufacturing in Mexico and the importation of the finished vehicles into the United States.
“We’re going to put a 100 percent tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those guys—if I get elected,” President Trump said. “Now, if I don’t get elected … It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.”
The following headline appeared on March 16 in The New York Times: “Trump Says Some Migrants Are ‘Not People’ and Predicts a ‘Blood Bath’ if He Loses.”
“Mr. Trump once more doubled down on the doomsday vision of the country,” New York Times staffers Anjali Huynh and Michael Gold wrote in a March 16 campaign trail article. “Mr. Trump delivered a discursive speech, replete with attacks and caustic rhetoric.”
ABC News’ Mary Bruce weighed in on the March 17 edition of “World News Tonight.”
“Trump warning, while discussing the economy, that there would be a ‘bloodbath’ if he is not reelected in November,” she reported.
“Obviously, he’s talking about a bloodbath for America,” said former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on March 18. “He knew what he was doing. We’re not stupid. Americans aren’t stupid. He was talking about a bloodbath.”
The Biden campaign seized on the moment. On March 18, it released a digital ad, paid for by the campaign committee Biden for President. It linked President Trump’s March 16 comments with the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the U.S. Capitol breach in 2021.
Less Reporting, More Editorializing
In an interview, Jon Nicosia, president and CEO of Washington-based consultancy News Cycle Media LLC, compared the mainstream press’ pursuit of President Trump to Herman Melville’s monomaniacal Capitan Ahab and his white whale.
“The media has a hatred for him that is so deep that … they are going to do everything they can to not see him win again,” Mr. Nicosia told The Epoch Times.
Mr. Nicosia, formerly with Mediaite LLC and the Independent Journal Review, described a media environment where reporters, editors, and publishers are comfortable with interweaving their own opinions into their coverage and interpreting what they think someone like President Trump “really means” when he speaks.
“If you wish to step back … and look at the art of journalism, you might come to the conclusion that basically journalism, especially the mainstream, has just morphed into political advocacy groups for either side,” Mr. Nicosia said.
Emily Jashinsky, director of the National Journalism Center at the conservative organization Young America’s Foundation, was more direct.
“This is a perfect case study to illustrate why the media is in a crisis of distrust: They gloss over material concerns, like domestic manufacturing, because they’re distracted by an awful combination of bias and clickbait,” Ms. Jashinsky said in an email to The Epoch Times.
Falling Trust, Readership
In October 2023, Gallup Inc. published a report on its opinion polling which found more than a third—39 percent—of Americans have no trust “at all” in the mass media.
In response to the question, “In general, how much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media—such as newspapers, TV, and radio—when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly,” most Americans said they have little or no trust in the press. Only 32 percent of respondents said they have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust.
When Gallup first asked Americans that question in 1972, nearly 70 percent of Americans said they trusted the press. In that era of American journalism, Mr. Nicosia said, bias in reporting or publishing was punishable with termination.
As recently as 2005, Mr. Nicosia said, longtime “CBS Evening News” anchor Dan Rather was pushed out of the organization after he anchored a story on CBS’ “60 Minutes” criticizing former President George W. Bush’s time in the Texas Air National Guard that was later found to be fabricated.
Today, television ratings and online page views, rather than factuality and public trust, are at the top of mind for most media organizations, Mr. Nicosia said.
In an email to The Epoch Times, Curtis Houck, managing editor of The Media Research Center’s conservative media watchdog NewsBusters, called the “bloodbath” news cycle the “first real scalding-hot meltdown of the 2024 general election on the part of the liberal media.”
“They’re beyond desperate to drive eyeballs to their dying newscasts, so they have no qualms about twisting what was clearly a riff,” Mr. Houck said. “It’s all about sensationalism and pulling in voters who are on the fence or could somehow be swayed to vote for Biden.”
Mr. Nicosia said both left-wing and right-wing media are guilty of editorializing. However, when right-wing media covers stories other outlets ignore, the mainstream press’ dismissal of newsworthy topics “looks so glaring” to the average reader.
A Pew Research Center report from November 2023 highlighted worrying trends for print media, local television news, cable news, and digital news publishers. All of the major categories covered in Pew’s report are seeing their circulations, ratings, and page views decline over time.
Newspapers are doing the worst, according to Pew. In the 1990s, more than 60 million Americans subscribed to a daily newspaper. In 2022, there were about 21 million subscribers.
“The American people are not buying what the legacy media is selling, ” said Jason Meister, a Republican political strategist close to President Trump, in a text message to The Epoch Times.
“The last 72 hours have been a horrific news cycle for the legacy media,” he said. “Some might call it a bloodbath.”
From The Epoch Times
