Harvard's Shorenstein Center's study of the media coverage of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton found that in 2015 Trump received far more "good press" than "bad press; also, in 2015, the GOP race received twice the coverage of the Democratic race. In 11 of the 12 months in 2015, Clinton's "bad news" outpaced her "good news," usually by a "wide margin." From January 1 through December 31, 2015, only 28% of Clinton's media coverage revolved around her stance on key issues and 84% was negative. In contrast, 43% of Trump's coverage was negative.
The Shorenstein Center also found that Hillary Clinton's coverage was "substantially more negative" than that of Bernie Sanders, although Sanders got "much less" coverage than Clinton.
Hillary's e-mails were deemed important by the media but it didn't help news consumers make sense of the issue, what harm was caused and how her e-mails compared with those of other high elected officials.
Thomas Patterson of the Los Angeles Times found in his analysis that 91% of the Clinton e-mail-related news reports were negative in tone.
Since I watched both CBS and ABC evening news virtually every night during the presidential campaign, it was very clear to me that their reporters had instructions to root through that day's release of Clinton e-mails and find one or two that were damaging to Clinton. Even when the e-mails were not damaging when seriously examined, they were handled, as Thomas Patterson notes, in a negative tone. One example of this occurred when CBS's anchor, Scott Pelley, ran a clip supposedly exposing a quid pro quo between a F.B.I. official and a Clinton staffer, a dog-whipped Pelley had to retract the report the following evening.
A classic of the negative spin applied to coverage of Hillary Clinton was when CBS did a negative piece on Donald Trump and then did the teaser: "But it wasn't such a good day for Hillary Clinton either." Zounds! I thought. Hold the presses! Another damaging Hillary e-mail. No, the news was of a poll showing Hillary with an unfavorable rating of 59%. And what was Trump's unfavorable rating in the same poll? It was 60%.
Jeffrey Toobin nails down Donald Trump in one economical sentence; then relates faults of Hillary Clinton; followed by a description of how the deck was stacked against Hillary. "Trump is a serial liar, a shady businessman, a bigot, and a self-proclaimed abuser of women; Clinton has a sometimes unsteady relationship with the truth and a faulty devotion to information security. Media attention focused almost exclusively on these traits, rather than on, say, what either might actually do as president. That was followed by a cascade of leaks from the F.B.I., which was a rich irony, since the whole controversy supposedly involved Clinton's inability to keep secrets."
Toobin describes the letter from F.B.I. Director James Comey, informing relevant committees of Congress of an investigation of Anthony Weiner's e-mails, a third party not involved in national security matters, "as a much appreciated gift to the Trump campaign." Toobin says the letter was "outrageous for many reasons, starting with the fact that Comey violated Department of Justice policy by sending it. As a rule, prosecutors and investigators are supposed to refrain from offering updates on pending investigations."
"As Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee put it, 'Assuming she wins and the investigation comes forward, and it looks like an indictment is pending, at that point in time, under the Constitution, the House of Representatives would engage in an impeachment trial." Jeffrey Toobin concludes: "A politics based on pursuit and accusation, rather than on reason and compromise, will address none of these problems." (Source: Jeffrey Toobin, "Another Round," The New Yorker, November 14, 2016.)
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