When Donald Trump entered the political arena some five years ago, reporters floundered for a way to cover his candidacy. Then, sensing a ratings boom from the chaos the businessman and former reality TV star injected into the primary, the left-leaning press quickly converted to covering all things Trump, benefitting both their bottom line and their sense of schadenfreude.
Following Trump’s surprise election in 2016, the press faced a different challenge: How to cover a president they despised? Unfortunately, their answer was to abandon any semblance of journalistic integrity. They pushed fake news while ignoring huge stories that might accrue to Trump’s benefit. As a result, Americans are sorely uninformed about news stories which, at any other time and under any other presidency, would deservedly flood airways and the print media.https://fc9fb40c33bbed1304045509720975a0.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
Here are seven important stories from just the last year that the press should have — and would have — covered in detail, or differently, but for their disdain for Trump.
1. Spygate
While the Spygate scandal spans many years, some of the most newsworthy developments broke over the last several months, although you would not know it if you read corporate media. Just Friday, the Department of Justice released information charging Kevin Clinesmith with making a false statement in an email he altered concerning Carter Page. Clinesmith inserted “was not a source” in the email addressing Page’s relationship with an intelligence agency, and that false statement led to a fourth FISA surveillance order on Page.
Now, the MSM did “cover” this story, if you count the spin peddled as news coverage. After telling readers “Ex-F.B.I. Lawyer Expected to Plead Guilty in Review of Russia Inquiry,” The New York Times twisted the story to slam Trump, sub-heading its article, “Prosecutors did not reveal any evidence of the kind of broad anti-Trump conspiracy among law enforcement officials that the president has long alleged.” The Times then hit Attorney General William Barr and defended the Robert Mueller investigation while minimizing Clinesmith’s misconduct.
Coverage of the charge against Clinesmith is already receding, but the story deserves relentless investigative reporting. Clinesmith was deeply involved in the Crossfire Hurricane surveillance of Trump, including in the FBI’s decision to task Joe Pientka with spying on the Trump campaign during an intelligence briefing. Further, Clinesmith altered the email while a member of Special Counsel Mueller’s team and the special counsel’s office then obtained the fourth and final FISA surveillance order on Page.
