I continue to get my local paper for my wife. She reads it front to back, mostly for the local news and for the ads.
I read some local stories of interest and scan the headlines. For the most part, the national headlines are a simple regurgitation of stories from the major wire services.
Over the last several weeks I’ve made it my mission to find that needle in the haystack. A positive Trump story. Sadly I’ve failed miserably. On an average day there are as few as 1 or 2 Trump related stories, with as many as 6 or 7 Trump stories. It varies from day to day, depending on what is going on.
What I’m finding is that my local paper seems to be regurgitating MSM negative wire feeds while ignoring those small handful of positive wire feeds.
What I find to be interesting is my wife’s comments. She’s not a Trump supporter and the 100% negative coverage reinforces her perceptions. When I attempt to explain that she is only getting one side, her eyes glaze over and I know its time to move on.
Its no wonder that Trump’s approval ratings are dismal.
Shades of when Obama wasn’t really getting any negative press with the opposite result. I mean the guy was schooled at more than one town hall where he brought up gun control, but the media wouldn’t touch that with a 20 foot pole. Fair and balanced media? Hardly.
Remember when they (the Obama administration) were talking about keeping anyone on the “no fly list” from being able to purchase a firearm? Not only an infringement of the 2nd amendment, but an infringement without due process to boot. Constitutional scholars, huh?
The news papers are cut and paste news mainly form the media outlets.
This may help you understand the why:
■ As it was last year, the Trump presidency was the biggest story of 2018, accounting for almost 87 hours of coverage, or 28% of all evening news airtime. But that’s down from 99 hours of coverage in 2017, perhaps a sign the networks are wearying of treating every Trump tweet as deserving of crisis-level coverage.
■ The tone of coverage remains incessantly hostile: 90% negative, vs. just 10% positive (excluding neutral statements), matching the historically bad press we documented in 2017. Yet despite the media’s obvious disapproval, public opinion of the President actually improved slightly during 2018, from an average 40% approval on January 1 to 42.7% approval on December 31, according to RealClearPolitics.
The best part was when all the Democrats in the Senate threw their hissy fit when their bill was soundly rejected that would have allowed that to happen. Sitting in protest supposedly. Not much different from them “working” either.
