Trump’s swing-state support depends on people who don’t trust the media

The Washington Post ^ | October 24, 2024 at 1:58 p.m. EDT | Philip Bump

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Speaking to CBS News’s Lesley Stahl during his first presidential bid, Donald Trump made an unsurprising admission.

Stahl had asked Trump why he continued to disparage journalists and the news media, describing them as an enemy of the American people. Trump’s explanation wasn’t that the media had earned that disparagement or to concede some exaggeration. Instead, he admitted that it was tactical.

“I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you,” Stahl recalled Trump telling her.

Again, not surprising. But it does cast a different light on Trump’s recent disparagements of CBS News’s “60 Minutes” for the “UNPRECEDENTED SCANDAL” (as he put it) of editing Vice President Kamala Harris’s response to a question she was asked in an interview. Trump declined to participate in a similar interview after learning that the outlet planned to correct his false claims before the program aired. So, to disparage both CBS and Harris, he suggests that the network is biased — as he actively avoids the pro-truth bias inherent in being held to account for lying.

Trump didn’t create the sense on the political right that the news media was dominated by unreliable actors who are biased in favor of the left. There has been a decades-long project to both amplify actual examples of bias in the media and to more broadly shield the right by suggesting that unflattering reporting is simply a function of such bias. What Trump admitted doing in his conversation with Stahl, in other words.

New polling of swing-state voters conducted by The Washington Post and our partners at the Schar School found that, thanks in large part to that project, confidence in the media is low...

[goodolemr]

I haven’t had cable tv in nearly 12 or 13 years. I am better off for it. Newspapers? I guess I miss the comics, but you can get informed on different things going on locally and nationally other ways.

[ridesthemiles]

THEY ALL ARE

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

"If you don't read the newspapers, you are uninformed.
If you do read the newspapers, you are misinformed."

- - - Mark Twain, who was a newspaperman for many years before becoming famous as an author.

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

Goes hand in hand with a quote from Will Rogers: "The problem isn't with what we don't know. The problem is with what we know that just ain't so."

[fortes fortuna juvat]

Anyone who still trusts the MSM is a hopeless imbecile, and that’s a huge problem for Trump because the education systems and the media indoctrination specialists have successfully created millions of such people!

[fortes fortuna juvat]

Come on folks, we can do betterer.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“betterer” ha ha! I wanted to forward that list and make copies to pass around, but “whom” changed my mind.

[Rdct29]

The media has zero credibility because they have been caught telling so many lies. It's funny how they can't believe that people don't listen to their lies anymore. It must suck to only have influence over stupid people. They already support their fellow traveler Kamala.