There's an enormous federal investigation into the political operatives of only one party. The counts of corruption are far higher for one party.
When news comes out about indictments and criminal trials of those in only one party, it's not because the media outlet has abandoned neutrality.
This is not to say I don't understand why they're infuriated with Trump (I likely would be too), or that I somehow think they're spreading fake news, or anything like that. But the thing is, some outlets (like CNN, but it's not the only one) do at least appear to have become less neutral and more hostile to Trump (even if justifiably so). It's by no means anything close to all of them, but the effect unfortunately does seem apparent for some of them, and it does almost seem like they don't really notice or mind it.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/08/08/donald-trump-...
https://news.gallup.com/poll/219824/democrats-confidence-mas...
Do you really need evidence US media is anti-Trump? Can you name any large, well known newspapers that endorsed him? From what I recall they all went for Hillary, there was even one paper (the USA Today?) that had never endorsed a candidate before and they went for Hillary.
Based on what criteria?
==Do you really need evidence US media is anti-Trump? Can you name any large, well known newspapers that endorsed him?==
Is the second part actually evidence of the first part or does it simply reinforce your prior belief? Can you name any candidate in history who was gifted more free screen-time or print-space by US media?
As for the latter paragraph, are you implying news outlets simply sell screen-time and print-space? How can the media "gift" coverage? Their job is to report what's happening and things said and done by a presidential candidate is clearly news. And yes of course the abundance of newspapers openly stating they wanted his opponent to win is evidence of being anti-Trump: that's basic logic.
Please expand on this statement. From my perspective, I see someone who supports tariffs, closed borders, increased debt, increased spending, handouts for specific industries ("picking winners and losers"), vilification of law enforcement, and more. These all go directly against traditionally "conservative" principles.
==are you implying news outlets simply sell screen-time and print-space==
How do you think the media makes money as a business? They are called advertisements, typically one must pay for them. In Trump's case, they covered him non-stop free of charge, essentially gifting him free advertising.
==And yes of course the abundance of newspapers openly stating they wanted his opponent to win is evidence of being anti-Trump==
Endorsements are done by editorial boards, which are distinct from journalists. The TV journalists gave Trump air time by not only showing all of his rallies, but showing the empty podium before the rallies. Meanwhile the rallies of Hillary Clinton were not covered in the same breathless way. The Washington Post wrote an entire article about it and estimated it at $2 billion[1].
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/03/1...
> Can you name any large, well known newspapers that endorsed him?
No! You are not allowed to turn the tables on me. You are the one that should show that "the Media" is anti-Trump, I shouldn't have to prove that it isn't.
Of the 100 largest-circulation newspapers in the US, 57 endorsed Clinton while only 2 endorsed Trump. Of the top 50 papers, five gave no endorsement, three endorsed "not Trump", and one endorsed Johnson. The rest directly endorsed Clinton, with zero endorsing Trump. So: when traditional journalists and editors at major newspapers took explicit positions on the election, they almost all opposed Trump.
This is obviously a different question than "is the media conservative or liberal?", "is the non-editorial coverage at major news organizations generally anti-Trump?", or "are news organizations employing a partisan agenda in their decisions about how to cover Trump?
The first one of those questions is relatively easy to answer: according to an Indiana University survey of 1080 journalists in broadly 'traditional' roles, 7% identify as Republicans, compared to 28% who identify as Democrats. The number identifying as Republicans has also been falling faster than the number identifying as Democrats in equivalent prior surveys.
The second one is more open ended, but I think we can at least sketch the outlines of an answer.
Intuitively, I would propose that cable television leans left with one obvious exception, while local news and television stations are much more scattered - and less dependent on the views of their journalists, since they often have purchased content and partisan owners like Sinclair.
Factually, the Shorenstein Center at Harvard finds that in the first 100 days of the Trump administration, news coverage of Trump was 80% negative. They find that CNN and NBC were most negative, while even Fox was 52% negative.
The third is so open-ended that I can't imagine discussing it without agreeing on a bunch of specific standards for evidence and discussion, because it requires deciding where objective coverage of badness stops and partisanship starts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_endorsements_in_the_...
http://archive.news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2014/05/2013-ame...
https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps-fi...
> 7% identify as Republicans, compared to 28% who identify as Democrats
The problem with these kind of stats is that they never reveal what kind of journalists we are talking about. It's irrelevant (to the question of bias in media) whether journalists reviewing books and movies likes Republicans or Democrats. Only journalists reporting on political and economical topics biases matters.
The negative reporting from the 100 first days I believe is at least partially because there were a lot of turmoil that were hard to spin in a positive light. The Russia collusion investigation, Muslim travel ban, repeal of Obamacare and so on. The reporting about the tax cuts have probably been more positive.
But I don't doubt that most journalists dislike Trump and that probably affects their reporting about him. Given his antics which involves calling them all liars and banning journalists from newspapers he particularly hates, I don't find that strange at all. Given that Trump is an "anti-Media" president I think the reporting about him has been very fair.
If you now think I'm moving the goal post, let me define "anti-$President." If you can show that media's reporting about Trump is just as slanted as Fox News' reporting was about Obama, then I would concede that media is anti-Trump.
Of the 100 largest-circulation newspapers in the US, 57 endorsed Clinton while only 2 endorsed Trump. Of the top 50 papers, two gave no endorsement, two endorsed "not Trump", and one endorsed Johnson. The other 45 directly endorsed Clinton, with zero endorsing Trump. So: when traditional journalists and editors at major newspapers took explicit positions on the election, they almost all opposed Trump.
This is obviously a different question than "is the media conservative or liberal?", "is the non-editorial coverage at major news organizations generally anti-Trump?", or "are news organizations employing a partisan agenda in their decisions about how to cover Trump?
The first one of those questions is relatively easy to answer: according to an Indiana University survey of 1080 journalists in broadly 'traditional' roles, 7% identify as Republicans, compared to 28% who identify as Democrats. The number identifying as Republicans has also been falling faster than the number identifying as Democrats in equivalent prior surveys.
The second one is more open ended, but I think we can at least sketch the outlines of an answer.
Intuitively, I would propose that cable television leans left with one obvious exception, while local news and television stations are much more scattered - and less dependent on the views of their journalists, since they often have purchased content and partisan owners like Sinclair.
Factually, the Shorenstein Center at Harvard finds that in the first 100 days of the Trump administration, news coverage of Trump was 80% negative. They find that CNN and NBC were most negative, while even Fox was 52% negative.
The third is so open-ended that I can't imagine discussing it without agreeing on a bunch of specific standards for evidence and discussion, because it requires deciding where objective coverage of badness stops and partisanship starts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_endorsements_in_the_...
http://archive.news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2014/05/2013-ame...
https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps-fi...
Comically absurd. Trump injects himself into media headlines on a daily basis, more often than not because he's picking a fight on twitter with someone over something petty. He has nobody but himself to blame for his unfavorable coverage. Pretending he's a victim here is a cookie cutter case of amoral tribalism and rank partisanship.
That's pretty what we already have actually. The amount of original reporting done on a major news story is far, far lower than the number of newspapers out there.
This study from 2010 is useful:
http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/02/the-googlechina-hacking-cas...
Out of the 121 distinct versions of last week’s story about tracing Google’s recent attackers to two schools in China, 13 (11 percent) included at least some original reporting. And just seven organizations (six percent) really got the full story independently.
Only seven stories (six percent) were primarily based on original reporting. These were produced by The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Tech News World, Bloomberg, Xinhua (China), and the Global Times (China).
The story being studied had an international dimension which bumped up the number of outlets doing original reporting, as it was impactful to both the USA and China. Most stories that are only relevant to one country would have far fewer.
This is one of the reasons why the newspaper industry is shrinking - the internet makes it clear for the first time how little original reporting there really is, and how much duplication of that little original reporting goes on.
As for picking teams, gaslighting etc ... US media is experiencing a surge in profits right now, and as far as I can tell the reason is that they've more or less openly abandoned any pretence of political neutrality. They've become anti-Trump cheerleaders that are more in the business of helping their readers feel superior than in the business of real news. It's hard to blame them because this appears to be a more profitable business to be in than trying to be neutral and it's caused a surge in trust amongst democrats only. But of course it makes them vulnerable, even in a country with the first amendment. The USA doesn't have a president who hates the media for no reason.