Article by Phillip Bump for the WPost Abt MSM

[BootinUp]

Mainstream media coverage is not why Biden isn’t popular

Many of Biden’s allies or supporters identify the mainstream media as a point of failure in this effort. Headlines or snippets of stories from The Washington Post or the New York Times are isolated and shared with recommendations for how the story should have been framed or written. Were it not for this sort of coverage, the argument goes, Biden would be faring far better.


I am undeniably a biased participant in this debate. But it seems irrefutable that this argument misunderstands how Americans receive information.


In December, The Post and our partners at the University of Maryland asked Americans to identify their main source of news. Only 3 percent of respondents said The Post. Eight percent said the Times. The two papers were the first source of information for 7 percent of independents and a staggering 1 percent of Republicans. Four times as many Republicans said their main source of news came from fringe-right outlets such as One America News or Daily Wire as said their main source was the Times or The Post.


The category of responses that was most often identified by respondents was “other” — sources of news identified by respondents were outlets not on the list, ranging from small media sites to religious fundamentalist sites. The second most-identified main source of news was Fox News. Three in 10 Republicans said the right-wing channel and its website were their go-to for news.

gift link Washington Post

[The Roux Comes First]

1. Perhaps MSM Coverage or Editorial Approach is Not the Cause of "Biden Unpopularity" (So to Speak)

But the crappy adherence to the bottom line uber alles and insistence on finding a way to turn an obviously asymmetrical presidential face-off into a side-by-side competition between two equally-deserving, rule-following competitors is not just a national joke.

It is an international travesty.