President Trump: Lost in Opinion



President Trump: Lost in Opinion
J.M. Rogers
...



       The United States is a country that has elected 45 presidents. Of these forty-five, few, if any, received an honest and unbiased representation by the press in their day. As has always been the case, such as with the Federalist Papers released prior to the signing of The Constitution, the citizenry is eager for information that either substantiates their values or challenges them. While positive articles can raise morale and support for an individual, the impact of a single negative article can often carry lifelong implications for the careers of professionals such as lawyers, doctors, senators, and presidents. These implications can, and do, derail future political or professional success. This is because the media is commonly held as an honest and unbiased source of information. As such, partisan viewpoints enforced by media outlets can create an unstable environment between the public and the White House. This instability is predicated on little more than the personal values extolled by media outlets and their influence on the public. Ultimately though, this effect is not the result of a thoroughly corrupt media, but the expression of varied interests of a large number of free-speaking citizens who are attempting to live in relative comfort.
       On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump was sworn into office as President of the United States of America. This began a historic period in which, “President Trump dominated media coverage in the outlets and programs analyzed, with Trump being the topic of 41 percent of all news stories—three times the amount of coverage received by previous presidents.”[1] Well before the inauguration ceremony had taken place, news outlets across the globe had released a litany of articles detailing negative viewpoints toward the, then, presidential candidate.
       All along the campaign trail, coverage of Trump was driven by the battle between left and right, and the ensuing fallout that would result from either side's victory. While this was partly due to the policies that Donald Trump espoused, it was also due to policies supported by several media groups that sought to push voters away from the conservative candidate. In fact, Trump “received unsparing coverage for most weeks of his presidency, without a single major topic where Trump’s coverage, on balance, was more positive than negative, setting a new standard for unfavorable press coverage of a president.”[2]  This denotes the partisan lean that many U.S. news outlets have assumed in the last few elections; a partisan lean that is still very active almost two full years into Trump’s presidency.  While troubling, this is not an expressly novel development, nor is it without causality. It exhibits the media's focus on providing constant news that their readers and viewers identify with. And, in an increasingly literate, liberal, and global society, readers and viewers are a news outlet's life supply. This has been a growing trend as “of the past four presidents, only Barack Obama received favorable coverage during his first 100 days, after which the press reverted to form. During his second 100 days, Obama’s coverage was 57 percent negative to 43 percent positive."[3] While some feel that the press is predominantly right-wing or left-wing, the truth appears to be that the press is predominantly focused on appealing to their reader base regardless of whether that means they must be critical of the president.
       By studying the areas of coverage that news outlets focus on, an individual can gain some idea of what topics are pertinent to a specific group. As Professor Thomas Patterson states: "Fox was the only news outlet in our study that came close to giving Trump positive coverage overall—the split was 52 percent negative to 48 percent positive."[4] Fox News has a more conservative demographic of viewers and therefore more viewers who sympathize with President Trump's agenda. However, favoritism is itself a form of bias, and while Fox News may favor a Republican candidate, they also practice overtly negative reporting of Democrats. During the later stages of the 2012 Presidential election, "Pew Research analysis found that Barack Obama received far more negative coverage than positive on the Fox News Channel.”[5] This could be due to the fact that "60% of Fox News viewers describe themselves as conservative, compared with 23% who say they are moderate and 10% who are liberal, according to a 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center.”[6] The conservative viewer base favor topics that differ from liberal viewers; topics that are heavily endorsed by President Trump and other Republican politicians. Still, Fox News is on an island of media coverage, providing the only categorically positive perspective on Trump's presidency thus far. This disparity of positive coverage reveals the war of agendas between citizens in society; a war that has waged since the beginning of time. This war of ideals affected even the earliest U.S. Politicians. “During his presidency [Thomas Jefferson] became critical of what he saw as the partisan nature of the press and began airing his grievances in personal letters stating, ‘Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.”[7] Ever the champion of the free press, it is obvious that even Jefferson faced negative media exposure despite his adoration for freedom of speech. It is easy to see that even during the formative years of the United States government, the media had a way of creating chaos in political campaigns by appealing to the opinions of specific societal groups.
      Given all this information, one could draw many conclusions. Perhaps the media is growing more partisan and is in fact out to destroy the current president. Perhaps the media has always been corrupted and has secretly pulled the strings behind the public curtain for centuries, as conspiracist claim. Or perhaps, it is simply that people do not agree, and as long as the United States is a polyglot entity, there will always be sides to choose from. Partisanship is difficult to avoid when the outcome of a person's opinion is tied to their notoriety and their career. This truth is reflected in the stance that Fox News has taken up behind President Trump. While the other major news outlets have taken a stance that strictly opposes the president, Fox News supports him, as do most of the viewers that choose to get their news through Fox. Those that oppose Trump foster more liberal ideals and therefore must oppose him in order to avoid polarizing their viewer base. While some may see this as a measure of control, it is more aptly defined as a measure of public sentiment. Such is the nature of democracies and republics. People prefer to affirm their beliefs, not challenge them. Preference is what drives them to turn the channel to Fox News for updates instead of MSNBC. Trump may have shattered coverage records in his first months as president, but he is merely the newest face to be subjected to the chaos of human preference. As long as a free press exists in the United States, people will say what they like, and align with whoever they like politically. Some will say that news outlets are corrupt and conspire to remove politicians, others will claim that news outlets are bought and aspire to get specific party members elected. The only thing that can be certain is that the claims will continue as long as the United States is the land of the free. 

Works Cited
 Holcomb, Jesse. "5 Facts about Fox News." www.pewresearch.org. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/14/five-facts-about-fox-news/.
Mattimore, Ryan. "Presidential Feuds with the Media Are Nothing New." History.com. https://www.history.com/news/presidents-relationship-with-press.
Patterson, Thomas E. "News Coverage of Donald Trump's First 100 Days." Harvard Kennedy School. https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps-first-100-days/.



[1] Patterson, Thomas E. "News Coverage of Donald Trump's First 100 Days." Harvard Kennedy School. https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps-first-100-days/.
[2] Patterson, Thomas E. "News Coverage of Donald Trump's First 100 Days." Harvard Kennedy School. https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps-first-100-days/.
[3]Patterson, Thomas E. "News Coverage of Donald Trump's First 100 Days." Harvard Kennedy School. https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps-first-100-days/.
[4]Patterson, Thomas E. "News Coverage of Donald Trump's First 100 Days." Harvard Kennedy School. https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-donald-trumps-first-100-days/.
[5] Holcomb, Jesse. "5 Facts about Fox News." www.pewresearch.org. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/14/five-facts-about-fox-news/.
[6] Holcomb, Jesse. "5 Facts about Fox News." www.pewresearch.org. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/14/five-facts-about-fox-news/.
[7] Mattimore, Ryan. "Presidential Feuds with the Media Are Nothing New." History.com. https://www.history.com/news/presidents-relationship-with-press.

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