The Media Then and Now

Several stories from President Biden's first two days in office really illustrate how differently the media treat President Biden from President Trump.

Pete Buttigieg's nomination to be Secretary of Transportation (compare to Trump's nominations) - 

The nomination and Senate hearings of Pete Buttigieg
National Guard Kicked out of Capital
Biden's 100 million vaccine goal
Biden violating his own mask mandate

Try to imagine if any of these stories occurred during Trump's presidency and how the media would have covered them. Compare to how they're being covered now. Thinking about that, it's clear that the media's approach to the Trump years consisted of the following:

1. Ignore all context. Remember the spate of "racist" Cabinet nominees? The formula was simple, find one action they committed throughout their life, that could be interpreted as racist and then call them racist full stop. Ignore everything else about their life. If someone called them a racist in their past, then they are a racist full stop. Do not under any circumstances write a full story about the sum total of their life and the counter-examples. The press repeatedly ignored context in stories about Trump to paint everything as egregious. When he moved the embassy in Israel, there was scant mention that every president had promised to do so. 

2. Interpret the story in the most negative way. For Cabinet nominees, if they only have private sector experience, lambast them for not having government experience. If they have government experience, criticize them for getting questions wrong. Ignore all the positive aspects. If one answer is wrong, then they are unqualified. The embassy story is another good example; how many people decried the move and said it meant the end of peace and imminent war? How many outlets pushed back?

3. Assume the most evil motivation. The press commonly attributed Trump's actions to evil intentions. They laid the groundwork for this by constantly claiming he was a racist and an authoritarian. Then when he would do something they didn't like or they misinterpreted, they would explain it by his being one or the other.

4. Assume that President Trump was responsible for anything bad that happened. This would apply to the story about the National Guard. There would be many stories about how awful this action was, and the assumption that Trump was directly responsible. Then they would talk about how he hates his base and he treats them like garbage. 

How many on the left blame Trump for the Covid economy? Was Trump responsible for Covid? How does he compare to European leaders? Are other European leaders blamed for their Covid economy? There's no question that Trump could have handled Covid better, but the fact that several European countries did just as bad demonstrates that Trump wasn't uniquely bad. How often do you see comparisons of US to countries that are worse? A responsible media would show how US performance compares to countries better AND worse. Not just the countries that are better. The vaccination story is similar. The US is a top-5 vaccinating country, both in absolute terms and daily. Therefore, the media don't report on that, or if they do, they compare us to Israel, which is the best.

5. Repeat the same stories that the other outlets are reporting. This will serve to amplify the story. Notice how negative stories about Biden, where they exist, are extremely isolated.

6. Point out, amplify, and ridicule every hypocrisy and mistake. Imagine if Trump had issued an order that masks be worn on federal property and then was on federal property with a group of people unmasked. How many stories would be written about that? What would be the tone?

There's no question that the corporate media treat Biden differently than Trump. Since I can't fix it, and I doubt anyone can, it's vital that we illustrate this to as many people as possible so that they're aware of how they're being manipulated.

The Resumption of the Unskeptical Press

President Biden has made it a goal of his to vaccinate 100 million people in the first 100 days of his first term. This, obviously, would require an average of 1 million people per day. Given the number of vaccinations that are occurring daily, however, this goal doesn't seem especially ambitious.

In the past week, the average daily doses were 939,973. In fact, more than 1 million doses have been administered five times already. The average so far for this business week (Monday was a national holiday) is 1.3 million.

In light of this, it doesn't seem like it would take much effort to achieve Biden's goal. This can never be proven, but I would bet it would be achieved simply by making no changes to the current personnel or plan, but that won't be done.

This all seems pretty straightforward. Perhaps the above analysis has a tinge of bias to it, but even many on the left wonder how ambitious this goal is, and any responsible journalist would surely point out that Trump left a system that was producing nearly 1 million per day, correct?

Doing a google search on "100 million vaccines" produced the following (in order)

"Biden Inherits a Vaccine Supply Unlikely to Grow Before April" (NY Times)
"Biden vows to move 'heaven and earth to get 100 million vaccinated" (The Independent)
"Biden administration plans for Covid vaccines and pandemic response" (NBC News)
"Amazon is offering to help Biden get 100 million COVID-19 vaccinations to Americans in 100 days "(KTLA)
"For Biden, 100 Million Vaccinations in 100 Days Not Easy" (WebMD)
"Distribute 100 Million Covid-19 Vaccines in 100 Days" (NY Times Opinion)
"Is Biden's bold promise to vaccinate 100 million Americans in 100 days possible?" (The Hill)

All of these headlines at least imply that this is very ambitious. The first article though, to its credit, does explicitly say this isn't very ambitious, and goes even further to say, that that goal would itself waste tens of millions of vaccines. The Independent article makes no mention of the current state of vaccinations. NBC News explicitly calls it ambitious, then doesn't provide the current state of vaccinations, but does talk about the daily and total deaths so far. The KTLA story also mentions daily and total deaths but not vaccinations. 

The WebMD story calls it "attainable" yet "extremely challenging." It calls a 1 million/day pace "somewhat of an increase over what we're already doing." Then does mention the total number of shots given and shipped since December 14th, which wouldn't provide the context of how difficult it would be for Biden's administration to build on where we are now.

The NYTimes Opinion piece goes an extra step, and provides the average number of vaccinations per day since mid-December--447,000. This is quite a misleading statement. Of course vaccinations were slower in the beginning days. Omitting the current pace of vaccinations should earn this opinion piece a "Misleading" label from the fact checkers.

Like several of the others, The Hill article includes the total number of Americans who have died, and the total number of doses distributed. It also quotes CNN claiming "Biden is 'inheriting a nonexistent vaccine plan' from the Trump administration." It's a good thing The Hill's readers aren't told that Trump's non-existent plan is producing the same number of vaccinations as Biden's "bold" goal.

The other indirect source of the poor reporting might be Google's search itself. Of the top ten stories returned, only one of them actually provided the context of the current daily vaccination rate, and no link to the information itself. These figures are not hard to find. Simply searching "vaccination progress" produces them. The only explanation for not including them is egregiously bad reporting or the lack of interest in actually informing the public for fear of making Biden look worse than Trump.

Again, kudos to the NY Times first article. They get today's good journalism award: Sharon LaFraniere and Noah Weiland. Joseph Guzman wins the award for bad journalism. Thomas J. Kollyky, Jennifer B. Nuzzo and Prasith Baccam win the "Too Biased to be Informative Opinion" Award