đź§µ20 LOWLIGHTS OF 2024 CAMPAIGN COVERAGEđź§µ
1. The New York Times printed this ridiculous op-ed by right-wing absurdist Rich Lowry. Anything for clicks.
2. After the assassination attempt against Trump in Pennsylvania, Politico detected a “new softness” in him. He was also suddenly “spiritual.”
3. When Trump visited Capitol Hill, scene of the Trump-incited Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, the Associated Press called it a “triumphant return.”
4. USA Today couldn’t decide whether Jan. 6 was good or bad.
5. This story about the Trump family’s fashion choices during a civil fraud trial was on Page 1 of the New York Times. Eleven months earlier, the Times’ story about Trump calling for “termination” of the Constitution ran on Page 13.
6. Classic sanewashing. Bloomberg said Trump “sharpened his criticism” of Harris on immigration instead of reporting that he claimed Harris was “mentally impaired” and warned that if she won, every town in Wisconsin would become a “third-world hellhole.”
7. When Trump called his political opponents “vermin,” the New York Times wrote this ridiculously soft and uninformative headline. After a social media uproar, the Times rewrote it but still left the word “vermin” out of its headline.
8. More vagueposting. CNBC’s headline says the “data is clear” but doesn’t tell us what the data says. The story itself says the data is “more in line with Biden’s narrative of American economic dominance than Trump’s apocalyptic warnings.”
9. Yet more vagueposting. The New York Times writes a story about Trump and Vance exploiting the death of an 11-year-old Ohio boy to demonize immigrants. But the Times’ headline blames “politics” instead of Republicans.
10. I’m part of the resistance. I’m not exhausted. I don’t know what the New York Times was talking about here.
11. Sen. Rick Scott used disgusting detail to lie about something that doesn’t even exist, what Republicans call “post-birth abortion.” Yet Scott got no pushback from Politico.
12. How embarrassing for the New York Times to be so ignorant about its own hometown that it thought Trump was once “Master of New York.” After mockery, the Times changed this headline to say New York was “Once Trump’s Playground.”
13. Yes, I know this is an op-ed, not a news report. But it was a journalistic choice (and a bad one) for the New York Times to print Matthew Schmitz’s opinion piece excusing lawlessness and describing Trump as an “outlaw hero.”
14. Politico, which just fell off the turnip truck, raises the possibility that Trump will “be guided by loftier principles.”
15. Major media must have euphemism desks to come up with alternatives to saying Trump lied. Instead, he’s “inverting the facts” (New York Times) and offering “revisionist history” (Washington Post).
16. The New York Times praised Nikki Haley’s “skill” at being two-faced. But instead of calling it dishonesty, it was “an ability to massage her message to the moment.”
17. Vivek Ramaswamy also got an affectionate New York Times euphemism. His lying was “a penchant for dispensing with the facts.”
18. The New York Times’ Peter Baker wrote about “gallows humor” at Washington dinner parties, as if it was funny that Trump’s fascism might force Americans to flee the country. Of course, the DC dinner guests might have a second home in Portugal. But most of us don’t.
19. Sure, Fox had to pay $787 million for lying about the 2020 election, but they got a debate! That'll burnish their image!
20. And then there’s this — major media folding to fascist intimidation. Shameful. Utterly shameful.
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