Naomi Girson | staff writer

Did reporters make a huge mistake?

Donald Trump is not a normal presidential candidate. His rallies are not normal presidential rallies, MAGA Republicans are not normal Republicans. The media should have never treated Trump as anything resembling a normal representation of an American politician.

Trump is a 34-count convicted felon. He has been found liable for the sexual abuse of E. Jean Caroll. He has never served his country, politically or in the military, unlike any other of the 45 presidents that have been in office before him.

In an effort to boost ratings, journalists “sanewashed” the candidate — attempting to make his babble coherent through streamlining down the hours of nonsense he spews whenever he opens his mouth.

This started all the way back when he first ran in the 2016 presidential election. Not only was Trump being covered like any other politician in the race, he was being covered more, which made it easy to mistakenly believe he was a viable candidate.

That alone played a major role in Trump’s victory in the 2016 election, according to The Washington Post.

“The mass media bestow prestige and enhance the authority of individuals and groups by legitimizing their status. Recognition by the press or radio or magazines or newsreels testifies that one has arrived, that one is important enough to have been singled out from the largest anonymous masses, that one’s behavior is significant enough to require notice,” said Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert Merton in their 1948 paper analyzing this phenomenon.

The media further legitimized him simply by giving him a large platform giving him even more screen time than his opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who got less than half the airtime he did according to data from the Tyndall Report, a website that catalogues nightly newscasts from CBS, NBC and ABC.

Trump’s victory was a consequence of the networks’ collective decision to milk the profits made by covering his antics. Ratings skyrocketed because of the constant Trump content, drawing in new viewership. CNN President Jeff Zucker was just one of the many who, in 2016, was ecstatic after seeing the spike in engagement on the network, according to The Washington Post.

The greed of the networks took away from the issue at hand.

It is not only Trump being perceived constantly that has made him seem ‘normal’ in this race, it is the type of coverage. Horse race journalism is a style of reporting that is utilized during elections. Instead of comparing candidates’ viability based on policy and qualification, it compares them by how well they’re doing in the polls. And possibly more importantly, what are the problems with this candidate today?

This type of election coverage has been criticized for creating a distrust of politicians, inaccurate polling data, an uninformed electorate and a distrust of news outlets, according to The Journalist’s Resource.

Horse race reporting made up for the majority of news regarding the candidates in the 2016 presidential election. Focus on policy goes out the window and focus is shifted toward how well candidates are doing in the polls.

“What did they do wrong?” becomes the question that everyone wants answers to. Horse race journalism is dangerous anyway, but by putting Trump as a horse in the race, it made him all the more likely to win, legitimizing him and delegitimizing the media concurrently.

Now, with the public’s ongoing distrust of the media, caused partially by Trump himself, and the very horse race journalism that helped him win the first time around, candidates have had to adopt new strategies.

During his 2024 campaign, Trump went on numerous podcasts and took to social media to get as much screen time as he could, while catering to young voters who do not engage with traditional news media.
On one such podcast hosted by conservative CEO of Valuetainment Patrick Bet-David, Trump gloated about how he was able to kill the media.

“I think I’m responsible for those up there going down, and frankly I’m proud of it. I also am responsible for the term ‘fake news’ and that’s a great term, but it’s not strong enough,” Trump said.

Elon Musk used his social media platform X, to tell the American people that “You are the media now.”

The media is not dead. We would not have gotten the election results the way we did without outlets like CNN. But faith in the media is continuing to dwindle.

Networks don’t pull as much attention as they used to and every year, more and more people find it harder to believe what they see on the news, according to PBS News.

74 million people voted for a man who threatens the media personally and constantly spreads the lie that mainstream media is an enemy of the people.

The media failed the American people in 2016, and again in 2024 with the continuous legitimizing of the least qualified presidential candidate ever offered on the ballot. They should have never made it as easy as they did to give Trump the biggest news presence any president has ever had.

It’s too late to not cover him, but he is a danger to democracy, and reporters should be pointing this out at every turn.

The media has to find a new way to make people listen, and they have to send the right message this time.

The media had the job of accurately reporting on Trump at the levels he actually warranted. Not only did they fail to do this, ergo, helping him into office for a second time, they eroded trust from the people.

Trump is undeniably a threat to democracy. This time, journalists need to convey the message unequivocally, or they will be taken out to slaughter by the very people that have fallen prey to the battle cries of the man they helped get elected president.