Bad press? Sometimes Donald Trump asks for it
Have you heard about the new Harvard University study that alleges liberal media bias? It's a big story, especially in media that have a conservative bias.
"About the only people who deny widespread media bias these days are the people who are directly benefiting from it," said the conservative star of "Tucker Carlson Tonight," reacting to the study on the conservative Fox News network. "And that would include progressive activists posing as reporters and the Democratic politicians whose water they carry."
Attaboy, Tucker. Keep tossing out those blanket smears of working journalists and you, too, might become as popular as Bill O'Reilly, whose show you are replacing.
However, regardless of your political orientation, there's nothing special about bashing media. (Which, by the way, is a plural noun, folks. Please stop saying "The media is...." Just stop it.) Everybody hates the media, including those of us who work in them.
That's why I welcome useful research into what we do and how we might do it better. But I don't welcome trolls who, in pursuit of a chance to say, "I told you so," twist research conclusions to back their own partisan position, whatever it may be.
In that light, the new study of media coverage of President Donald Trump's first 100 days by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School is useful for what it really says about media bias: It transcends politics.
Conservatives predictably applauded the study's finding that, of news stories about the new president that could be categorized as positive or negative, 80 percent were classified as negative for their tone.
Among recent presidents, that beats the previous record of 60 percent negative press set by President Bill Clinton's coverage during his first 100 days. That was only slightly ahead of George W. Bush's 57 percent and way ahead of Barack Obama's 41 percent.
But look at what we're talking about. The study doesn't measure partisanship. It measures negativity -- in other words, bad news vs. good news.
At least President Trump can't complain that he is being ignored. He dominated media coverage. He was the topic of 41 percent of all news stories in the media that were analyzed. That's three times the amount of coverage received by the previous three presidents.
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