A short item this week on the news site Semafor had an interesting way of describing the existing dynamic between the national news media and Joe Biden’s angry reelection campaign.
It said Biden’s team has “begun organizing a series of off-the-record trips for top political reporters and editors” to meet up at campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, for the purpose of “background briefings on campaign strategy.”
I’d like to think that the person who authored the article is just hopelessly naive, but it’s Ben Smith, who has been running in these circles for what feels like three lifetimes. So he certainly knows that contrary to his depiction, these aren’t boring scenes where curious reporters show up to get a rundown of Biden’s campaign schedule and themes. That’s not what happens.
What happens is the nation’s most influential media outlets send representatives to a Democrat candidate’s facilities — in this case, Biden’s campaign headquarters — to coordinate what their coming “news coverage” should look like, according to the Democrat’s needs and preferences. Thusly, Smith wrote that in these recent meetings, “Campaign officials have chafed at some of the coverage of former President Donald Trump, feeling that outlets are too focused on his legal troubles and haven’t paid enough attention to some of his incendiary recent statements on the campaign trail.”
In other words, CNN and MSNBC are about to start showing a lot more clips from Trump rallies wherein he says something that’s supposed to offend the audience. And if it doesn’t, no problem. Jake Tapper and Joe Scarborough will be on hand to helpfully explain why it should. Over and over and over again.
We’ve already seen a version of this play out in recent days. Not even a month ago, in perfect unison, the media reupped their Trump-is-Hitler routine.
Associated Press, Dec. 18: “Senate border security talks grind on as Trump invokes Nazi-era ‘blood’ rhetoric against immigrants.”
The Washington Post, Dec. 18: “That language has caused alarm among some civil rights advocates and immigrant groups, who have compared it to the writings of Adolf Hitler.”
The New York Times, Dec. 17: “In New Hampshire on Saturday, he told the crowd that immigrants were ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’ a comment that previously drew condemnation because of echoes to [sic] language used by white supremacists and Adolf Hitler.”
Reuters, Dec. 16: “Donald Trump, the Republican presidential frontrunner, said on Saturday that undocumented immigrants were ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’ repeating language that has previously drawn criticism as xenophobic and echoing of Nazi rhetoric.”
Unable to help themselves, Biden campaign officials then rushed to Politico to brag that it was all their idea. That article explicitly quoted Biden’s campaign communications director claiming that Trump is “going to echo the rhetoric of Hitler and Mussolini, and we’re going to make sure that people understand just how serious that is every single time.” (The “rhetoric” in question was Trump’s perfectly innocuous mantra that the unmanageable hordes of impoverished migrants unlawfully dumping themselves over the southern border are “poisoning” the country by chipping away at its social and legal fabric.)
It’s never a hard sell for a Democrat to get the media to pick up its preferred storyline. Biden slurs through those “Trump is a threat to democracy!” speeches with mind-numbing repetition, and the accomplice media take the cue.
“A second Trump term ‘poses a threat to the existence of America as we know it,’ says The Atlantic’s top editor”— CNN.com, Dec. 5.
“IF TRUMP WINS: The staff of The Atlantic on the threat a second term poses to American democracy”— The Atlantic, Dec. 4.
“Why a Second Trump Presidency May Be More Radical Than His First”— The New York Times, Dec. 4.
“A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending”— The Washington Post, Nov. 30.
So, no, these gatherings with Democrat media aren’t dry informational sessions. They’re all-hands meetings for reporters to receive instruction as to how the next week, month, and season should go. If the Biden campaign wants more hype over whatever it is Trump is saying at his rallies, trust that it will be done.
