donnie's entire political foundation was based on media promotion due to coverage of the birther lie. the media hugely supported him and his political viability with their extended and salacious coverage of the birther lie.
did the media ever say "birtherism is correct" or "obama was born in kenya"? no, but then again, i'm not sure offhand if donnie himself ever technically said any of that either. he usually just said things like that it was suspicious or there are questions or some people are saying or why haven't we seen the long form or whatever. point is it was a lie and we all recognize it as a lie because you can't keep raising the question and denying the facts over and over against without it being recognized as a lie.
and the media went along with it, raising the question and covering the controversy *as if there ever really was one in the first place* and refusing to come out and just plain say obama was born in hawaii end of story nothing more to report here.
if you don't want to call that a lie, fine, whatever, be my guest and call it something else, but my point stands, the media's reporting on the matter was horrendous and shameful and complicit.
keep in mind that they had no problem giving nearly no air time at all to third party candidates. they could have done the same with donnie, but they gave more air time on news programs to donnie *before he was a candidate* than they gave to actual third party candidates during the entire campaign.
the media makes editorial decisions like that all the time, and they support candidates or destroy them with how much airtime the give them. they hugely supported donnie in this way when they could easily have ignored him and it would have been completely justified. it's not "covering up" to not report, or only minimally report, a non-story lie of a non-politician non-candidate minor celebrity.
i'm not saying the should have covered up that he was a birther. once they decided to cover him at all as a politician, sure they had to cover his ludicrous statements about birtherism. but they did it in a way that promoted him because they kept going back to him, kept then asking him about other political things, and so on. they never covered it like a scandal against him or a disqualifying event or anything.
instead they kept bringing him back on the air to ask him more questions about other things. it was presented as an exciting controversy and they wanted to hear what he would say about the birther thing and also if he might say something exciting about other topics as well. it established him as an interesting if controversial political figure.
the media hugely overreported donnie before he was a candidate, after he announced, and during the campaign. that's huge support. i'm not saying they endorsed him directly or explicitly agreed with his lies, but so what? they gave him huge support.
let's say i'm peddling a new product, call it a sh*t sandwich. it has zero nutritional value, it's bad for you, it tastes awful.
maybe it's worth one story on the news, hey look, he's selling sh*t sandwiches, and that's it.
but then the media keeps coming back to talk about my sh*t sandwiches, again and again and again. i never say even i like it, i just say some people are saying they like it. the media reports it as a controversy and maybe brings on other people to say my sh*t sandwiches taste like sh*t. but they keep coming back for more stories and interviews.
eventually i make millions because people keep hearing about it so they have to try it. most people don't like it, but i'm on the air as a sandwich peddler and later i start peddling other sandwiches and they're terrible also but people try them too because i'm on the air so much.
you can't say the media is blameless or covered it reasonably. is there a point in perhaps arguing that if i scour the transcripts i won't find a single directly false statement made by the media? who cares and that's missing the point entirely. the decision to give the birther story massive coverage was part of the big lie and horrible behavior by the media,
i'm not sure if you had a point with your link. more of a story about how donnie used the birther lie to generate media attention and promote himself into a viable candidate, which is pretty much my point.
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