Nothing To See Here: Most Media Ignored Biden's Tumble

NY Post 3/20/21

Major left-leaning U.S. press outlets are largely avoiding mention of President Joe Biden's repeated stumbles as he boarded Air Force One, while many foreign publications are devoting prominent coverage to the incident, reports The Daily Mail.

As of Friday afternoon, the homepages of MSNBC, CBS News, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and New York Times had no mention of Biden's stumbling incident earlier in the day at Joint Base Andrews.

The news blackout was not strictly partisan, with the homepage of right-leaning One America News Network also omitting any mention of Biden's repeated tripping.

Several U.S. publications did devote prominent homepage space to Biden's stumble, including TMZ, Fox News, the New York Post, New York Daily News, and Politico. The Drudge Report led with an image of the stumble and banner headline reading 'BIDEN FALLS AGAIN MONTHS AFTER INJURING FOOT'.

CNN and ABC News carried brief items on the White House statement that Biden was 'just fine' after tripping, and NBC News featured a link to a video of the incident well below the fold.

And New York Times photojournalist Doug Mills did tweet a photo of the incident with a succinct caption explaining '@POTUS stumbles as he walks up the steps of Air Force One,' but was blasted with furious criticism from Biden supporters on Twitter.

'What the hell?' fumed media critic Jeff Jarvis in response to Mills' tweet. 'The stumble is yours.'

Internationally, a number major foreign outlets featured prominent homepage coverage of the stumbling incident, including the UK's Mirror, Sun, Telegraph and Times.

Prominent news outlets in Spain and Australia also devoted homepage space to Biden's repeated tripping on the Air Force One stairs.

In contrast to the lack of interest in Biden's stumbles, mainstream U.S. outlets heavily covered an incident last year, in which Trump took mincing baby-steps down a ramp at West Point, which he later explained was 'very slippery.'

Although Trump did not stumble during the incident, it sparked rampant speculation about his health and criticism over his capacities, including from Biden himself.

'Look at how he steps and look at how I step,' Biden said in September 2020, in a clip featured on CNN. 'Watch how I run up ramps and he stumbles down ramps. OK? Come on.'

'Trump's West Point walk sparks questions about his health,' read one CNN headline.