Plus Pages

Monday, August 15, 2016

Report: The Media is Trump's Latest Scapegoat

Donald Trump's most vocal supporters are literally cheering for him to fight the media. His crowds at rallies regularly boo and jeer the journalists who cover the events.

On Saturday night, when Trump said The New York Times is "going to hell" and threatened to revoke the newspaper's press credentials, the crowd applauded approvingly.

Politicians, particularly from the Republican party, frequently complain about media scrutiny and accuse journalists of being biased. But the ferocity of Trump's attacks is unprecedented in modern American politics, according to Brian steler at money.cnn.com.

He is explicitly running against the news media, even while running a campaign that relies mostly on news coverage instead of paid ads to communicate with Americans.


"He's turned to bite the hand that fed him," former Time Inc. editor John Huey said on Sunday's "Reliable Sources."

Huey called Trump a "demagogue" and said journalists are his new scapegoat: "First it was the Mexicans, then it was the Muslims, now it's you. It's the media."

Trump's senior communications adviser Jason Miller said the media critiques are necessary.
"If there's completely biased, ridiculous reporting that's going on, then, look, we have to stand up and defend ourselves," he said on "Reliable Sources."

Later in the day, Trump national spokesperson Katrina Pierson said on "CNN Newsroom" that "the media has been writing the Trump campaign's obituary for 424 days."

The campaign has been circulating "media bias award" emails. And Trump himself has been on a tear in recent weeks, criticizing CNN, The New York Times and other outlets nearly every day.
On Friday he called CNN "catastrophic." On Saturday he called CNN "disgusting."

No comments:

Post a Comment