Yellow Journalism, Orange President

Yellow Journalism, Orange President

The US media’s commercial nature is great for business, terrible for democracy.

by Victor Pickard
11.25.16

The factors contributing to Donald Trump’s election are legion — racism, nativism, and misogyny; social media’s growing power as a political instrument and a source of misinformation; economic malaise caused by Republican and Democratic administrations’ neoliberal economic policies.

But the news media deserve special scrutiny for their role in enabling Trump.

Media institutions help set agendas and frame political debates each election cycle. But with Trump, they helped normalize and legitimize a candidate who never should’ve come close to attaining such power. Through false equivalence and a lack of substantive policy coverage, the media elevated a far-right politics that should’ve been delegitimized the moment it reared its head.

News media’s constant coverage boosted Trump’s visibility and popularized his message. The benefit, however, was mutual. Even as Trump attacked the press — mocking and feuding with journalists, threatening to change libel laws, holding campaign events where reporters were corralled and roughed up — he still served major media outlets well. That’s because the news organizations covering Trump, particularly television stations, reaped incredible amounts of money from their election coverage. Cable news organizations’ expected haul this election season? A record-breaking $2.5 billion.

This drive for profit helps explain news media’s fixation on Trump’s campaign over his competitors’, especially in the primary season’s early days. One study calculated that, in 2015, Trump received 327 minutes of nightly broadcast network news coverage, compared with Hillary Clinton’s 121 minutes and Bernie Sanders’ 20 minutes. The New York Times reported that Trump garnered nearly $2 billion in free media coverage during his primary campaign. Other estimates place it closer to $3 billion.

More:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/11/media-advertising-news-radio-trump-tv/