Dear Media, at Least Cover Hamas Like You Cover Trump

The era of Donald Trump has produced a lot of handwringing from the mainstream political press, and a lot of loud pressure from progressives, both leaning into the same basic point: that the press should abandon the “bothsidesism” approach of reporting competing claims by political figures, and should even move beyond “just the facts” reporting, in order to bluntly tell the audience that Trump is a lying liar who is lying yet again. There is some merit to giving readers and viewers enough facts to draw conclusions about who is telling the truth, but the entire movement has also amplified the existing biases in favor of pushing the political press into more blatantly partisan advocacy.

This is dressed up as an elevation of journalistic ethics. In 2016, when CNN started posting chyrons on screen calling Trump a liar, Matt Yglesias wrote at Vox that “CNN has finally figured out how to cover Donald Trump’s constant lying.” That went on for years; in one pandemic press conference, CNN was telling its viewers things such as “Trump melts down in angry response to reports he ignored virus warnings,” “Angry Trump uses propaganda video, produced by government employees at taxpayers’ expense,” and “Trump uses task force briefing to try and rewrite history on coronavirus response.”

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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The era of Donald Trump has produced a lot of handwringing from the mainstream political press, and a lot of loud pressure from progressives, both leaning into the same basic point: that the press should abandon the “bothsidesism” approach of reporting competing claims by political figures, and should even move beyond “just the facts” reporting, in order to bluntly tell the audience that Trump is a lying liar who is lying yet again. There is some merit to giving readers and viewers enough facts to draw conclusions about who is telling the truth, but the entire movement has also amplified the existing biases in favor of pushing the political press into more blatantly partisan advocacy.

This is dressed up as an elevation of journalistic ethics. In 2016, when CNN started posting chyrons on screen calling Trump a liar, Matt Yglesias wrote at Vox that “CNN has finally figured out how to cover Donald Trump’s constant lying.” That went on for years; in one pandemic press conference, CNN was telling its viewers things such as “Trump melts down in angry response to reports he ignored virus warnings,” “Angry Trump uses propaganda video, produced by government employees at taxpayers’ expense,” and “Trump uses task force briefing to try and rewrite history on coronavirus response.”