When looking for bias and/or laziness in the media, sometimes the more benign examples are the ones that prove to be the most revealing.
Exhibit A today is Donald Trump’s dash to dinner with his family on Tuesday night and the protective press pool that should be with him at all times being left behind.
{mosads}Traditional media is like a jilted lover right now, crestfallen and unhinged over the stunning result on Election Day that almost none of them wanted, nor would even dare to predict. And as a result, every microcosm of Trump’s daily existence is turned into a full-blown macrocosm, every benign situation morphs into a crisis.
Should Trump be leaving his press pool behind? No. But we’re only one week in and a dinner out late in the evening when a lid is capped on news for the day isn’t what one would call a big deal.
Some in the press felt differently, however:
Trump dumps his press pool again, raising concerns about future access – Washington Post
Trump Leaves Press Behind for Steak Dinner, Incoming Admin Already Showing Lack of Transparency – NBC News
Trump Ditches His Press Pool, Heads to the ‘21’ Club – New York Magazine
Why you should care about Trump ditching his press pool – Yahoo News
The theme in those and other headlines and tweets are basically the same: Trump needs to be more transparent. He’s being reckless leaving the press pool behind. He needs to respect the media more, because they’re important.
But not included in any of those reports was simple research, the kind of blocking and tackling that goes into any report via context or precedent.
Precedent question: Since John F. Kennedy, a protective press pool has always existed when it comes to our presidents. So have any presidents or president-elects ever ditched their protective pool before?
A 14-second Google search says yes. It happened the last time we elected a new president back in 2008 in the form of Barack Obama.
On December 26 of that year, the president-elect was vacationing with his family in Hawaii when he decided he wanted to take his daughters to a water park. Short version: They slipped out the proverbial back door and left the press pool behind.
Did any of the reports or reporters above bother mentioning this precedent in their hysterical reactions to Trump’s jaunt to the 21 Club?
Nope.
Is it because they don’t know how to use Google?
Nope.
Is it because to mention such a precedent would therefore blow up the desired narrative?
Yup.
Is it also because they’re all so myopic on all-things-Trump that they forget to do the aforementioned basic blocking and tackling?
You bet.
But that was eight years ago. Perhaps a more recent example is in order to really drive this point home when it comes to the worse kind of bias of all: the bias of omission.
At a 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton felt “overheated” and left early without letting her protective press pool know.
Clinton would then collapse as she was boarding her secure van. Fortunately, her security team caught her before hitting the ground.
The former Secretary of State would not be taken to a hospital, but her daughter Chelsea’s apartment instead. Her protective press pool would not know her whereabouts for nearly 90 minutes.
Clinton’s collapse was caught on video, however, by a citizen journalist on his cell phone. The video would quickly be uploaded to YouTube and was broadcast by every news outlet around the world.
Did any of the reports or reporters above bother mentioning this Clinton precedent in their hysterical reactions to Trump’s jaunt to the 21 Club?
Nope.
Is it because they don’t know how to use Google?
Nope.
Is it because to mention such a precedent would therefore blow up the desired narrative?
Yup.
Is it also because they’re all so myopic on all-things-Trump that they forget to do the aforementioned basic blocking and tackling?
You bet.
When looking for partisanship and agenda in the media, sometimes the easiest examples to make a case come in smaller packages, in benign stories.
Here we have a classic case of three political leaders engaging in the same act and producing very different reactions.
Sometimes that reaction merely depends on what party identification letter exists after a politician’s name, especially in a time of Trump.