12/13/2021, 12:50 pm
From The New Republic:

The gist of the grist:
[blockquote]Whether we like it or not, there is reason to be gravely concerned. But against this backdrop, an interesting debate has broken out about the press's role in protecting our too-fragile institutions and raveled civic fabric from a Trumpian assault—and whether the media, in an effort to support democracy, must unflinchingly support Biden, as well.
Over the weekend, The Washington Post's Dana Milbank made considerable waves with a column that rather lustily accused the media of offering President Biden worse coverage than President Trump. At first blush, this might seem impossible, if only because Trump's actions—through corruption, incompetence, and the need to constantly battle the media—made it almost impossible to cover him favorably. Milbank, however, marshaled some statistics from data analytics experts, who combed through hundreds of thousands of articles to provide a detailed “sentiment analysis” supporting his thesis that “Biden's press for the past four months has been as bad as—and for a time worse than—the coverage Trump received for the same four months of 2020.”
But Milbank's most provocative idea posited that the media needed to be “partisan” in the service of democracy. “The country is in an existential struggle between self-governance and an authoritarian alternative. And we in the news media, collectively, have given equal, if not slightly more favorable, treatment to the authoritarians.”[/blockquote]
By "the authoritarians" he means Donald Trump and Republicans. By "self-governance and an authoritarian alternative" he means Joe Biden and the Democrats.
The whole poop: https://newrepublic.com/article/164680/ ... st-milbank
The gist of the grist:
[blockquote]Whether we like it or not, there is reason to be gravely concerned. But against this backdrop, an interesting debate has broken out about the press's role in protecting our too-fragile institutions and raveled civic fabric from a Trumpian assault—and whether the media, in an effort to support democracy, must unflinchingly support Biden, as well.
Over the weekend, The Washington Post's Dana Milbank made considerable waves with a column that rather lustily accused the media of offering President Biden worse coverage than President Trump. At first blush, this might seem impossible, if only because Trump's actions—through corruption, incompetence, and the need to constantly battle the media—made it almost impossible to cover him favorably. Milbank, however, marshaled some statistics from data analytics experts, who combed through hundreds of thousands of articles to provide a detailed “sentiment analysis” supporting his thesis that “Biden's press for the past four months has been as bad as—and for a time worse than—the coverage Trump received for the same four months of 2020.”
But Milbank's most provocative idea posited that the media needed to be “partisan” in the service of democracy. “The country is in an existential struggle between self-governance and an authoritarian alternative. And we in the news media, collectively, have given equal, if not slightly more favorable, treatment to the authoritarians.”[/blockquote]
By "the authoritarians" he means Donald Trump and Republicans. By "self-governance and an authoritarian alternative" he means Joe Biden and the Democrats.
The whole poop: https://newrepublic.com/article/164680/ ... st-milbank