Journalists slanted the “news” product so strongly in the Trump era to destroy Trump’s presidency, and destroy it early, if possible. Their actions betray the feeling that they have important and influential platforms from which they can and should run America in between the elections. The voters can have a say every two years for about two weeks.
Recall 2004, when Newsweek’s Evan Thomas admitted the press would go all in for John Kerry and John Edwards, and it’s “going to be worth maybe 15 points.” That wasn’t enough in 2004. But what about in elections decided by three or four points? The media felt robbed in 2016, because they had tried so hard, and then they never let up. The president getting the coronavirus didn’t even cause them to pause their war drums for a moment.
In this election, it wasn’t just the reporting power of the news media, but the censorship power of Big Tech that could be credited with “shaping” the election. Tucker Carlson said that "Democrats harnessed the power of Big Tech to win this election."
In his partisan nightly newsletter, CNN’s Brian Stelter mocked Tucker: “These are Jell-O arguments, all about emotion. But I suspect that this will be the go-to position for many GOP media stars: Trump was robbed, thus we were robbed – no, we can't prove it, but we know it in our guts.”
This is not an emotional argument. You can watch the difference between CNN reporters at Trump press conferences versus CNN reporters at Biden press events. It’s the difference between rabid tigers and domesticated kittens.
A new Media Research Center poll of 1,750 voters in seven swing states demonstrates how the suppression of potentially damaging news for Biden was successful:
– 45.1 percent of Biden voters were unaware of the financial scandals of Hunter Biden, wrapped up in the foreign-affairs power of Vice President Joe Biden in the Obama years.
– 35.4 percent of Biden voters were unaware of Tara Reade’s allegation that Biden sexually assaulted her on Capitol Hill when she worked for him.
– 25.3% of Biden voters said they didn’t know about Senator Kamala Harris’s left-wing ideology, that she was ranked America’s most “progressive” Senator in 2019.
The media also suppressed good news for President Trump’s record:
– 49 percent of Biden voters had no idea economic growth surged by 33 percent in the third quarter, which would be unheard of, except for the extraordinary pandemic lockdown in the second quarter
– The five pre-election jobs reports from June 5 to October 2 showed a record 11.1 million jobs were created in the summer and fall. But 39.4 percent of Biden voters said they didn’t know about this good news.
– 50.5 percent of Biden voters did not know the U.S. became a net exporter of oil for the first time in 2019.
– 45.3 percent of Biden voters had no idea that Trump’s team had helped broker historic agreements between Israel and Arab nations.
– 36.1% of Biden voters said they did not know about the administration’s key role in promoting coronavirus vaccine research through Operation Warp Speed.
In every case, Biden voters said they might not have been Biden voters if the “news” media did their job and reported all the news, instead of burying stories that didn’t match their manipulative narratives. One of every six Biden voters we surveyed (17 percent) said they would have abandoned the Democratic candidate had they known the facts about one or more of these news stories. This would have swung the swing states the other way. That’s why they hit the Mute button.
