Harvard Kennedy School: Media Coverage Of Trump 96 Percent Negative
05/23/2017
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Tucker Carlson began his Friday show by remarking on a new analysis about media reporting of President Trump, and of course it almost entirely negative. The report is from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, titled “News Coverage of Donald Trump’s First 100 Days”.

Interestingly, the paper noted, “Immigration was, at once, both the most heavily covered topic in U.S. news outlets and the topic that drew the most negative coverage.”

That outcome should not be surprising, since the occupation of Journalist is unique in that it has no corresponding employment visa: as a result, members of the scribbler class never face the possibility of being replaced by a cheaper immigrant worker and have little apparent sympathy for those who do. If the thousands crossing the border included skilled reporters and editors rather than being mostly strawberry pickers, immigration coverage would certainly change: sob stories of “immigrant” suffering would be balanced by the crushing cost of open borders to Americans in terms of jobs lost, schools flooded with non-English speakers and healthcare overwhelmed.

Let’s have more immigration diversity in the newsroom by Congress creating a Journalist Visa! There’s nothing like more open borders in one’s own profession to clear the mind and increase compassion for those similarly afflicted.

Back to Tucker Carlson and his observations about media malfeasance. . .

TUCKER CARLSON: The news media are liberal: if you grew up in this country, you probably have known that for quite a while. It’s obvious in the stories they choose and maybe even more evident in the ones they ignore. About the only people who deny widespread media bias these days are the people who are directly benefiting from it and that would include progressive activists posing as reporters and the Democratic politicians whose water they carry, but exactly how liberal and how biased is the press? Well, for the answer to that we have to go to social science. and now for the first time in a while we actually have some some real data.

A new study from researchers at Harvard University looked at 10 major news outlets and found the overwhelming majority of their coverage of the new administration’s first 100 days was hostile. At CNN and NBC, both purportedly straight news outlets, 93 percent of the stories were negative which is remarkable considering that there’s no way that 93 percent of their stories about — I don’t know, pick someone — Fidel Castro were negative. Ninety-three percent is a lot. In fact it’s not only news coverage at that point: it’s advocacy. So the press doesn’t like Trump; we knew that, but it’s not just Trump, it’s the issues that Trump’s voters favor. The media disagree with those too, and they skew their coverage accordingly.

Take immigration for example. Now there many sides to that issue but most Americans believe it ought to be illegal to come to our country without permission. That’s why the Congress has made it illegal. But that’s not how the people who work in the media think: they believe that defending the border is an act of bigotry, and so that’s how they have portrayed it with no other side represented at all most of the time. The Harvard study found that of stories on Trump’s immigration policies, fully 96 percent were negative. There was more diversity in the Romanian media under Ceausescu. That’s no diversity at all.

Now if you’ve read a newspaper lately, you’ve seen it. Here’s the New York Times for example: “Immigrants Hide, Fearing Capture on Any Corner.” The LA Times: “Trump’s crackdown sparks fear and anger among immigrants here illegally” and of course, America’s least honest newspaper The Washington Post which wrote in a headline: “Immigrants are now canceling their food stamps for fear that Trump will deport them.”

Where are the stories about Americans hurt by illegal immigration? Well, you’d have to wait an awful long time to see those. There aren’t many, if any. If anything, most television news is even more distorted than this.

SCOTT PELLEY: President Trump drew an X today through the welcoming words of the nearby Statue of Liberty.

FAREED ZAKARIA: Trump has always trafficked in fear-mongering; this time to stoke those fears and present himself as the country’s protector. He chose to punish ordinary men women and children who are fleeing terrorism and violence.

JIM AVILA: This is just a proposal, but already immigration attorneys are telling me it’s harsh and un-American.

CARLSON: Un-American. Well that’s news with a message at its core, just like in a political campaign which in many ways is exactly what this.

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