In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, major newspapers are giving former President Donald Trumpâs federal criminal indictment for alleged crimes related to the January 6 insurrection a fraction of the coverage they gave former Secretary of State Hillary Clintonâs use of a private email server in 2016, according to a new Media Matters study. Media Matters reviewed print coverage in five newspapers â Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post â for stories mentioning Trumpâs indictment in the week following U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkanâs October 2 unsealing of special counsel Jack Smithâs latest filing, which reveals damning new evidence of the former presidentâs alleged crimes. We found the papers ran 26 combined articles mentioning Trumpâs indictment in the week after the unsealing of Smithâs filing. But those same papers published 100 combined articles â nearly 4 times as many â that mentioned Clintonâs server in the week after then-FBI Director James Comeyâs 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 Clintonâs server (46) as they did front-page stories that mentioned Trumpâs indictment (7) over those periods. Obsessive news media focus on Clintonâs 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.
Heâs got so much going on that half the paper would be about him if they kept covering everything between the classified documents, election interference, hush money, Georgia, tax fraud, Carroll defamationâŠ
Guys, Iâm starting to think Trump isnât meant to run a country.
I wonder what itâll take for for us to kick him to the curb by hand instead of waiting for the justic system toâŠnot do justice against those who deserve it.
Itâs almost like itâs by design to wear people down and have them stop believing everything they hear because âthat all canât be happeningââŠ