Trump hated "the Media" long before he became president. The idea that "the Media" are anti-Trump cheerleaders need some corrobating evidence because otherwise it is bullshit.
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.
==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?
Hmm. Are you arguing Trump is not a conservative? He ran under a Republican banner and has many classically conservative policies.
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.
==and has many classically conservative policies.==
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].
Yes I need evidence. Especially since you claim it is obvious that "the Media" is anti-Trump it shouldn't be hard for you to bring forward that evidence.
> 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.
I think the newspaper endorsements line was meant to be evidence, but I'll flesh it out a little.
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.
From a cursory glance, about half of all American newspapers endorsed Obama in 2012 and the other half endorsed Romney. Were half of all newspapers anti-Obama?
> 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.
