Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank on Tuesday dismissed the idea of media bias against Donald Trump and, instead, called for even more of it. According to Milbank in his column, “press neutrality” on the businessman “legitimized the illegitimate.”
On the day that a Media Research Center study found 91 percent of Trump’s coverage to be hostile, the Post journalist complained, “The problem is the media didn’t show bias against Trump earlier and more often.”
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Milbank then explained why objectivity wasn’t necessary in the 2016 campaign:
In an ordinary presidential campaign, press neutrality is essential. But in Trump we have somebody who has threatened democracy by talking about banning an entire religion from entering the country; forcing Muslims in America to register with authorities; rewriting press laws and prosecuting his critics and political opponents; blacklisting news organizations he doesn’t like; ordering the military to do illegal things such as torture and targeting innocents; and much more. In this case, attempting neutrality legitimized the illegitimate.
He concluded, “And it is absolutely appropriate to “take sides” in a contest between democracy and its alternative.”
If Trump is the reason the Post is so biased, how does Milbank explain the paper’s 2012 obsession with bashing Mitt Romney, including a 5400 word investigation of the Republican's high school years and breathlessly reporting on a teenage prank as though it was desperately important. It seems as though the paper treated Romney in 2012 as another “contest between democracy and its alternative.”
