Popular wisdom has it is that there are two candidates on the election ballot this fall: former President Donald Trump for the GOP, and for the Democrats, Vice President Kamala Harris.
In fact, there’s a third major candidate out there.
That would be the mainstream media and its credibility.
Last week in this space it was noted that Time magazine was in this headline from the New York Post:
Time cuts 22 staffers at magazine, cites ‘significant challenges’ across media industry
The point made was that Time’s staff cuts were in reality a reflection that Time itself was losing credibility with stunts like its recent Harris cover, glorifying the Left’s favorite candidate of the moment.
But it would be a huge mistake to believe this credibility problem is limited to Time.
The hard fact is that the American people have the entire mainstream media under a magnifying glass, studying what is presented to them under the guise of objective fact.
Take a look at the front page right here in NewsBusters to see these three headlines, two reflecting the coverage of the CNN Kamala Harris-Dana Bash interview and the third ABC’s take on former President Trump’s honoring the soldiers killed in Afghanistan during the disastrous Biden-Harris withdrawal episode.
The first from colleague Alex Christy reads:
MSNBC Hails Harris's 'Clever' Defense Of Fracking Flip-Flop
The second, by Jorge Bonilla, read:
The CNN-Harris Interview Wasn’t Actually An Interview, But a Debate Dress Rehearsal
And the third, with Curtis Houck’s look at the ABC/Trump/Arlington episode.
ABC Joins Smearing of Trump Over Arlington, Livid With Vance’s ‘Charged Language’
What all three have in common is putting the credibility of, in this case, CNN and ABC, under the microscope. And, to say the least, finding the credibility of both networks decidedly wanting.
A small moment in the scheme of things. Yet in fact, it is a very large problem that haunts the mainstream media.
For the next two months the media will be zeroing in on every word uttered by candidates Trump and Harris. The slightest twitch of an eyebrow, a laugh, the color of a tie (Trump’s) or pants suit (Harris) will make headlines.
But unmentioned will be the fact that ever so quietly the American public will be reading these headlines or watching the televised images - and judging not the candidates but the media presenting the headlines and televised images.
How did we get to the place where it's the media - not just the candidates - that are under such microscopic observation?
The example I submit has been mentioned in this space long ago, but in the case of current events it is relevant to recall again.
That example comes from the now very old but still relevant Pulitzer Prize winning book of the late political reporter Theodore H. White: The Making of the President 1960.
In which White writes this of the supposedly objective press corps covering then-Democratic presidential nominee Senator John F. Kennedy. Kennedy, of course, was running against GOP opponent, then-Vice President Richard Nixon. White wrote:
By the last weeks of the campaign, those forty or fifty national correspondents who had followed Kennedy since the beginning of his electoral exertions into the November days had become more than a press corps - they had become his friends and, some of them, his most devoted admirers. When the (campaign) bus or the plane rolled or flew through the night, they sang songs of their own composition about Mr. Nixon and the Republicans with the Kennedy staff and felt that they, too, were marching like soldiers of the lord to the New Frontier.
And now? Now, a full 64 years later, this problem of a decidedly left-leaning media has metastasized to such a point that the descendants of those pressies covering their pal JFK in 1960 make not the slightest pretense to displaying their leftward bias in their coverage of just about any and everything.
The difference now? That bias is no longer limited to a late night on a campaign bus or plane. The bias is well out there for all to see - with not a regret or apology in sight.
And as a result, the media’s credibility has taken a massive hit.
So as the conclusion of the 2024 presidential campaign barrels down on us, it is crystal clear that in addition to candidates Trump and Harris, the credibility of the media is getting voted on as well.
And in terms of media credibility, it isn’t going well.
