Taxpayer-funded National Public Radio relished describing Donald Trump with words "criminal" and "convicted" and especially a “convicted felon.” Friday’s sentencing in New York offered a golden opportunity. I could tell this was coming because in Friday's 9am top-of-hour newscast, they talked of Trump's "criminal sentencing" three times.
On Friday’s Morning Edition, anchor A Martinez announced “he will come away with a criminal record.” They used “convicted” six times. Reporter Ximena Bustillo said “even with a criminal conviction, voters elected him to the White House,” so he “will become the first convicted felon sworn into the Oval Office.”
STEVE INSKEEP, anchor: What was it that Trump was convicted of?
BUSTILLO: The jurors ultimately convicted Trump of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
On Friday’s All Things Considered, anchor Juana Summers and reporter Andrea Bernstein used “convicted” five times to thrill their leftist audience.
Summers began: "New York Judge Juan Merchan sentenced President-elect Donald Trump today for concealing payments to a porn star to influence the 2016 election. Trump's sentence of unconditional discharge means he'll have no jail time, probation or fines, but it does mean the criminal trial has left him a sentenced, convicted felon 10 days before he takes the oath of office."
Bernstein explained: “So throughout this case, which started years ago, we didn't know would Trump be charged, tried, convicted. But today we knew the outcome because last week the judge said there would be no jail time.”
Later, Bernstein praised Merchan as "deliberative," and "taking into account all sides," but "He said this was a serious crime Trump was convicted of, that it has what lawyers call gravamen, precisely because, quote, "it was the premeditated and continuous deception by the leader of the free world that is the gravamen of this offense."
And this is how it ended:
BERNSTEIN: Trump becomes the first U.S. president to enter office a convicted felon.
SUMMERS: That's right -- a convicted felon.
On Saturday morning's Weekend Edition, there was anchor Scott Simon in their Week in Review segment: "Yesterday Donald Trump sentenced in New York for the hush-money trial - no jail time, no other punishment. There is the notoriety, of course, of being the first convicted felon to be inaugurated as president."
Typically, none of these reports even mentioned this case was brought by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, a Democrat elected on a promise to get Trump. None of them mentioned that "deliberative" Judge Merchan donated to Joe Biden and the "Progressive Turnout Project" (a small amount), and his daughter Loren Merchan is a professional Democrat who worked for Kamala Harris's 2020 campaign (and was paid by the 2024 Kamala campaign as well).
Trump is quoted as calling it a "witch hunt," and then the media skip all evidence that underlines their partisanship. Our Rich Noyes study found ABC, CBS, and NBC avoided mentioning the Democrat affiliations in 90 percent of their stories on Trump's legal cases. In Bragg's case, we found CBS filed 48 stories and never mentioned Bragg was a Democrat.
