Vox Writer: Since the Early ’90s, Media Standard For Clintons Has Been ‘Guilty Until Proven Innocent’

May 5th, 2016 9:38 PM

During the upcoming presidential campaign, predicts Vox’s David Roberts, the media will not acknowledge an inconvenient truth: that the difference in quality between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is comparable to the difference in potability between “Coca-Cola [and] sewer water.”

“The campaign media's self-image is built on not being partisan,” wrote Roberts in a Thursday article. “How does that even work if one side is offering up a flawed centrist and the other is offering up a vulgar xenophobic demagogue?...Going after Clinton will be journalists' default strategy for proving that they're not biased.”

Moreover, Roberts alleged, groundless Hillary-trashing is second nature for political reporters, who for almost a quarter-century have been “chas[ing] after ridiculous personal attacks and conspiracy theories…whispered into their ears by right-wing hacks…Clinton rules mean guilty until proven innocent, then and now. The Washington media is a machine that transforms crap about Clintons into headlines.”

From Roberts’s piece (bolding added):

Hillary Clinton, for all her flaws, has demonstrated a basic level of competence. She understands how policy and government work…

…Almost irrespective of what you think of Clinton's politics or her policies, she is manifestly more prepared to run the federal government than Donald Trump…

[But] there are entire classes of [political] professionals whose jobs are premised on the model of two roughly equal sides, clashing endlessly. The Dance of Two Parties sustains the consultants

And it sustains the media…

…There will be a tidal pull to normalize this election, to make it Coca-Cola versus Pepsi instead of Coca-Cola versus sewer water…

No institution needs a competitive election more than the media, especially what remains of the "objective" campaign media…

…The campaign media's self-image is built on not being partisan…How does that even work if one side is offering up a flawed centrist and the other is offering up a vulgar xenophobic demagogue?...

…Going after Clinton will be journalists' default strategy for proving that they're not biased…

Trump will give them opportunities…

Consider what Trump will do when he's behind, being bested by a woman, at risk of national humiliation, struggling to unite a party that is connected to him only through a shared hatred of Clinton. The mind boggles.

Will the Washington press corps chase after ridiculous personal attacks and conspiracy theories regarding Hillary Clinton, whispered into their ears by right-wing hacks?

Ha ha. Have you met the Washington press corps? They have been doing that since the early 1990s. Clinton rules mean guilty until proven innocent, then and now. The Washington media is a machine that transforms crap about Clintons into headlines, and Trump is a bottomless supply of crap.

Along with that, Clinton being Clinton, and Clintonworld being Clintonworld, there is likely to be no shortage of missteps, malapropisms, unforced errors, and poorly chosen surrogates to keep the media busy even without Trump's help.