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In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, major newspapers are giving former President Donald Trump’s federal criminal indictment for alleged crimes related to the January 6 insurrection a fraction of the coverage they gave former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server in 2016, according to a new Media Matters study. Media Matters reviewed print coverage in five newspapers — Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post — for stories mentioning Trump’s indictment in the week following U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s October 2 unsealing of special counsel Jack Smith’s latest filing, which reveals damning new evidence of the former president’s alleged crimes. We found the papers ran 26 combined articles mentioning Trump’s indictment in the week after the unsealing of Smith’s filing. But those same papers published 100 combined articles — nearly 4 times as many — that mentioned Clinton’s server in the week after then-FBI Director James Comey’s notorious October 28, 2016, letter on new developments in that probe, as we documented in a 2016 study. The papers ran more than 6 times as many combined front-page stories that mentioned Clinton’s server (46) as they did front-page stories that mentioned Trump’s indictment (7) over those periods. Obsessive news media focus on Clinton’s server in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign helped Trump to victory, even as Comey ultimately reconfirmed that no charges were appropriate in the case. But eight years later, with one presidential candidate facing active prosecution for federal charges related to his attempt to subvert an election, outlets are making different choices.
It’s pretty clear. If not, I’m not sure what to say to clarify.
Media owners help trump. Much more than a personal cash donation would. Which is why, when the “debunking” states media owners don’t help (“donate to”) trump, it’s ironic.
By saying the infographic is “debunked”, the implication is that media owners are not supporting trump. And I say again - they could very well be giving millions, as Elmo Musk does, without being directly identified in an FEC filing. So, the “debunking” is itself “debunked” by simply pointing out political donations can be unknown.
To restate, so you can clip ‘n save:
So, pop quiz hotshot: is the infographic “misleading”?
OK, but by the logic you’re using, you could accuse anyone of anything. I could make an infographic that says, “Kamala Harris was caught killing small animals as a child,” and when someone says that never happened, I could just say, “Well, juvenile records are almost always sealed and expunged, and people who seek power are often have sociopathic tendencies, so this debunking is debunked, since it’s an unknown.” It’s just using the adage, “yhe absence of proof isn’t the proof of absence,” as a justification to continue spreading a lie.
Indeed you could and then the onus is on you to show all the examples of Kamala doing things like killing small animals. Does she talk about it? Does she wear things that indicate it? If she was the CEO of a corporate news organization, does she oversee stories promoting it? (Or, more likely, minimizing argument against it?) If you have boatloads of that evidence, you might have a good argument.
Got nothing? Well, that’s a poor argument. Maybe there are “Jewish space lasers” and MTG has broken the story wide open, but in the absence of literally any other piece of relevant information, it’s a poor argument to make.
I have metaphorical boatloads of evidence that the corporate news kaisers are supporting trump. So much so that pretty much anyone on here knows a bunch of them already. So much so, it’s hardly worth mentioning because it’s omnipresent. There’s more supporting evidence coming out every day.
That addresses the “just making up stuff” part, but let me once again, for the third time now, point out that financial donations to a campaign can be made in many ways that are not as rigorously documented as personal donations. So many ways, in fact, that the absence of these CEO’s names on opensecrets.org doesn’t really answer the question.
But if you’re simply arguing that as far as words on the infographic go, A is not B, then I’ll give it to you. Change “donor” to “supporter” on that infographic and we can have this exact same conversation again with the exact same meaning and relevance.
Is the CEO that presides over news coverage that doesn’t continually mention trump’s - conviction for hundreds of millions in fraud, the court’s finding of rape, the bizarreness of his speech, and a hundred other things that throw the ludicrousness of his candidacy into high relief - does the CEO that presides over not presenting that information support trump?
Yes. Yes they do. Did they give the equivalent of two dollars to his campaign fund and make sure their name was recorded? No. Oh! Well! Debunked! These are all egregious lies!
If you understand the point of the demographic, you can acknowledge its factual inaccuracy and its greater truth. Right?
Hey, if you’re ever wondering what people mean when they say, “Blue MAGA,” it’s this; 8 rambling paragraphs of conspiracy theories about media companies’ CEOs, with no evidence or sources, to justify a debunked infographic. It’s long-winded, “Fake News.”