Sympathy for the devil (but not Trump)? Media coverage 95 percent negative after 2nd assassination try

by WorldTribune Staff, September 19, 2024 Contract With Our Readers

The unrelenting media refrain since he first came down the golden escalator in 2015, is that Donald Trump is a very bad human being and a “danger to democracy.”

CBS’s Norah O’Donnell and NBC’s Lester Holt are dutifully following the legacy media narrative on Donald Trump.

Was there a pause for empathy, if not compassion, for the former president and his family after this narrative was credited for two attempts on Trump’s life?

Analysts at the Media Research Center (MRC) reviewed 69 minutes of coverage following Sunday’s second assassination attempt on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts between Sept. 15 and Sept. 17 and found 95 percent of all coverage of Trump was negative.

“Over the three nights, we tallied 21 evaluative comments about the GOP candidate, 20 of which were negative, which computes to a 95% negative spin score,” the MRC reported.

If legacy media requires proof that the Left’s rhetoric is having an affect on how some Americans view Trump, they need only look at a new poll which shows 28% of Democrats believe America would be better off if Trump had been assassinated.

Trump told Fox News that would-be assassin Ryan Routh “believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it.”

“Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country — both from the inside and out.”

NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt went so far as to accuse Trump’s rhetoric.

“Today’s apparent assassination attempt comes amid increasingly fierce rhetoric on the campaign trail itself. Mr. Trump [and] his running mate JD Vance continued to make baseless claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio,” Holt said Sunday.

Holt tied bomb threats allegedly made in Springfield, Ohio to Trump’s rhetoric. Those threats turned out to be hoaxes that were called in from outside of the United States, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said.

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The MRC noted that CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell also put the onus on Trump.

“Donald Trump is blaming Democrats for inflaming political rhetoric, but the former president’s own words seem to be increasing the threat of political violence in Springfield, Ohio. That’s where a false and ugly accusation against Haitians, thousands of whom are legal permanent residents, is impacting everyday life,” she said.

According to the MRC, NBC reporter Garrett Haake similarly said, “Trump has also used incendiary language against Democrats, and authorities have not yet revealed a motive in either incident.”

“These networks gave relatively little time to the accusation that these attempted shootings might have been influenced by Democratic rhetoric painting Trump as an existential threat,” the MRC said.

“Out of 48 minutes of coverage of the attempted shooting, the three networks spent less than two minutes (1 minute, 53 seconds) on the possibility that Democrats could share the blame.”

The poll of 1,000 registered voters taken by veteran pollster Scott Rasmussen’s Napolitan News Institute after the second assassination attempt against Trump revealed that Americans also had strong thoughts on what was driving the would-be assassins to act, with 45% suggesting it was anti-Trump rhetoric and 41% suggesting it was news media coverage.

In a trend dating to John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 in Dallas, respondents in the poll suggested they were open to possible conspirators in the Trump assassination attempt, with 37% suggesting government agencies could be involved, 34% believe it was possible Democrats or the campaign for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala could be involved and 33% open to foreign involvement.

Remarkably, 33% suggested it was possible that Trump or his campaign were involved in the assassination plots.


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