Richard Benedetto, a former reporter and columnist for USA Today, penned an article for Real Clear Politics titled “Trump Derangement at the Post.” He studied front pages of The Washington Post for two months to illustrate how the former president gets more attention than the current president.
He reported the paper has a “Trump obsession,” and he had the numbers. For June and July – a total of 61 days – “Trump’s name appeared 33 times in Washington Post Page One headlines. Biden, who is the current president, skated away with just 14 Page One mentions.”
Moreover, 31 of the 33 headlines with Trump’s name in them were negative. For example:
- “Justice Dept. reveals damning details in Trump case”
- “U.S.: Trump flouted law all along way”
In contrast, eight of the 14 Biden mentions were positive, such as these:
- “Biden announces new loan forgiveness”
- “Biden’s border authority affirmed”
Most of Trump’s headlines were about his “legal troubles,” not about his presidential campaign. Like this Sunday header:
Democracy at risk with defendant candidate
Trump’s run portends unpredictable and ugly events, legal experts fear
What would we do without “legal experts” to make the Post narrative work?
Biden’s were more promotional:
- “Biden readies his pen on debt”
- “Biden, McCarthy emerge stronger from the scrum”
- “Biden defends India’s democracy as Modi visits”
- “Casting insult as strength, president owns ‘Bidenomics'”
The negative headlines we found were about how Biden wasn’t pleasing the left enough. There was “Biden’s carbon capture plan hits a wall of angry allies” and there was the blander “Biden faces renewed pressure on high court” (to pack it).
Benedetto made a point we often make: “Something is wrong here. Trump is not the president; Biden is.” Yes, Trump is the leading Republican contender for president, and yes, there are “bombshells” like indictments from the Biden Justice Department. As he wrote, “more than twice as much front-page coverage of Trump as of Biden seems a little over the top.”
We decided to check on the first eight days of August, to continue the trend. Check this out: there have been 13 Trump headlines in August (another indictment)…and ZERO Biden headlines. So that would be 46 to 14 since June 1.
Benedetto concluded “Clearly, Post editors agree with robot-like regularity that Trump, not Biden, is the top story of the day.” He also noticed that while Trump was just indicted, the president was conveniently on vacation in Delaware.
Do you think it was by accident that Biden just happened to be on vacation while Trump was in the dock? Or do you think Biden knew the indictments were coming down – after all, it was his own Justice Department that brought them – and decided to get out of town and leave the big news spotlight all to Trump?
My guess is the latter.
In sum, those who study the Post‘s front pages over time might conclude that the newspaper – in its choice of story placement and the negative tone of the headlines – is out to get Trump. Or, conversely, out to boost Biden. Either way, they wouldn’t be far from wrong.