Trump's attacks on the press -- and how the "liberal media" myth has empowered him
SATURDAY, FEB 11, 2017 06:00 AM EST
Yes, the mainstream media has biases that Trump has exploited — but not the ones he complains about in public
CONOR LYNCH
On Monday, Donald Trump’s war on the media took a ridiculous turn — even by Trump standards — when the petulant president speculated in a speech to the U.S. Central Command that the press was deliberately trying to cover up reports of Islamic terrorism.
“It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported,” said Trump, who seems incapable of making a speech without mentioning the “dishonest press” and touting the latest conspiracy theory he read on InfoWars.com. “And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.”
This claim no doubt came as a surprise to anyone who has watched cable news in his or her life and has seen how extensively the mass media reports Islamic terrorist attacks when they occur in the West — which they rarely do. Trump, who is reportedly an avid watcher of cable news, either has a very bad memory or is fibbing once again to take a shot at the media and push his Islamophobic agenda. As Benjamin H. Friedman, a research fellow at the libertarian think tank Cato Institute, remarked to PolitiFact (which ruled Trump’s statement “pants on fire”):
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http://www.salon.com/2017/02/11/trumps-attacks-on-the-press-and-how-the-liberal-media-myth-has-empowered-him/