In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, major newspapers are giving former President Donald Trump’s federal criminal indictment for alleged crimes related to the January 6 insurrection a fraction of the coverage they gave former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server in 2016, according to a new Media Matters study. Media Matters reviewed print coverage in five newspapers — Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post — for stories mentioning Trump’s indictment in the week following U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s October 2 unsealing of special counsel Jack Smith’s latest filing, which reveals damning new evidence of the former president’s alleged crimes.  We found the papers ran 26 combined articles mentioning Trump’s indictment in the week after the unsealing of Smith’s filing. But those same papers published 100 combined articles — nearly 4 times as many — that mentioned Clinton’s server in the week after then-FBI Director James Comey’s notorious October 28, 2016, letter on new developments in that probe, as we documented in a 2016 study. The papers ran more than 6 times as many combined front-page stories that mentioned Clinton’s server (46) as they did front-page stories that mentioned Trump’s indictment (7) over those periods. Obsessive news media focus on Clinton’s server in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign helped Trump to victory, even as Comey ultimately reconfirmed that no charges were appropriate in the case. But eight years later, with one presidential candidate facing active prosecution for federal charges related to his attempt to subvert an election, outlets are making different choices.
    • CaptainCancel@sh.itjust.works
      4·
      18 days ago

      I don’t think Stephen Colbert was being serious when he said that quote. Mind you, all the quote sites that cite him saying that do not provide the source. Based on his persona from The Colbert Report, I imagine this was part of a joke, especially given the names he called out.

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        18 days ago

        Yes, he was totally doing that in character, if memory serves. Mocking the likes of Klannity and O’Lielly getting butthurt over the factual Media Matters.

        I remember linking to that site in an exchange with someone I know, and they responded (this was over email) with “oh, Media Matters. Of course you’d rely on something even more liberal than the MSM!”, or words to that effect. Not bothering to rely on the subject at hand, of course. It was just, oh, Media Matters, and noping out, LOL.

        For qons, fact-checking qon nonsense and using their own words against them is like salt on a slug. It’s weird how so many of the prominent ones now openly sneer and whine about being fact-checked! For years, the more low-info base would cry about sources, now people like bobo and empty g and “JD” “Vance” will whine about in in the moment. Not realizing it is not the flex they think it is to cry about not being able to brazenly lie without being called on it.