The Sunday news shows asked 11 different guests about Joe Biden touching women on the shoulder, but ignored a credible rape allegation against Trump.
Sunday News Shows Ignore Sexual Assault/Rape Allegation Against Trump
Here are the numbers:
Sunday shows: 3/31/19: ABC asked 3 guests about the Biden allegations; NBC asked 6 guests about it; CBS asked 2 guests. All three hosts suggested the allegations might be "disqualifying."
This Sunday: the new Trump rape allegations weren't mentioned on any of the 3 Sunday shows. https://t.co/HVm6TmnoD8
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— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) June 24, 2019
The Sunday shows have long had a conservative bias. The majority of the guests are Republicans, and the shows tend to follow the model embodied by Chuck Todd of non-confrontational access journalism.
The challenge that Democrats will face in beating Trump in 2020 is that Trump has been very good for corporate mass media. The New York Times and Washington Post have reached new heights because of the constant publicity that they get from Trump. The Sunday news shows run on Republicans and the Trump administration.
Even with Trump calling the press the enemy of the people, the Sunday news shows continue to have a biased model of coverage. The exception to Sunday’s coverage was Jake Tapper’s interview of Mike Pence on CNN’s State Of The Union, where Tapper challenged and pressed the vice president throughout the interview, but even Tapper didn’t mention the sexual assault allegation against Trump by E. Jean Carroll.
The Sunday shows don’t represent what is going on in America, and instead of talking about an important allegation against the sitting President Of The United States, the shows gave us a dose of Beltway access journalism at its very worst.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
