Eric Siu examines how mainstream media covered Trump being rushed off stage, citing CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. He argues outlets reported fairly on this incident but are shaped by incentives, donors, and leadership biases that influence their broader coverage.
You saw a lot of people posting to Twitter about how you can't trust the mainstream media anymore. You can't trust CNN, or you can't trust Washington Post. So you can see this is a tweet from Sean Peery over here. He says, unbelievable, look at the headlines. And then the quote here is, a half-truth is the most cowardly of lies. Okay, so you see Secret Service rushes Trump off stage after he falls at rally. That's from CNN. And then Washington Post says Trump escorted away after loud noises at Pennsylvania rally. And then New York Times, Trump rushed off stage after chaos at rally. Initially I was like, dude, they're not telling the truth. This is like lying, right? Then I saw someone tweet something from one managing editors or chief editor, I should say, the message sent to the entire newsroom saying, hey guys, like, we don't know what this is right now. Like, we can't call this an assassination attempt until the authorities call it an assassination attempt, right? So I think in this scenario, the mainstream media, they did their job correctly, but each mainstream media outlet, they have their incentives, they have their donors, they have their people that lean a certain way, and they will write that way because it's really influenced by that person at the top.
