[apex3stoker]

The mainstream media provide unlimited and free ads to Trump. Trump is a savvy marketer. He plays the mainstream media like a fiddle. The outrageous remarks he said or tweeted are reported relentlessly by the mainstream media. The way I see it is that whatever Trump said or tweeted are like campaign ads. What the mainstream media have been doing is nothing but playing campaign ads with rebuttals. The relationship between Trump and the mainstream media is pretty symbiotic.

The things that the mainstream media have not reported enough is his corruption and incompetency. Instead, they constantly chase after his remarks. I will give you an example. The way USPS is undermined is nothing but sabotage. Trump and his officials claimed that they run USPS like business. The mainstream media simply reported it along this frame. However, no reasonable business would run like what they did to USPS. Besides, the moment they claimed that they would revert the changes, the mainstream simply reported what they said. No, they didn't revert their changes. By reading mainstream media news casually, we wouldn't know that USPS was sabotaged. Many people think that Trump administration simply tried to run USPS like business but they decided not to due to opposition. The reality is that USPS was sabotaged and the damage is done.

[kbenson]

I'm not sure what you are referring to as the mainstream media. There were weeks of articles about USPS and how there were problems. There were years of reporting about collusion and corruption with regard to Russia and other scandals. Whether you were looking at Fox or at NY Times or WaPo or CNN or whatever, whether it was for or against, there was neverending coverage about the Trump scandal of the week, and that Trump's explanations were BS. The problem wasn't lack or reporting or criticizing Trump, it was that there was always a new scandal every week that needed coverage.

[apex3stoker]

I refer to virtually all outlets except the conservative ones (e.g. the ones you listed except Fox). As I said, the problem with the coverage is that it is based on their framing, i.e. running USPS like a business. There are so many articles about whether USPS should be run like a business because of this framing. This is a false permise. Trump administration simply co-opted "business" for sabotage. Mainstream media fell into the trap. By arguing whether USPS should be run like business leads to the impression that Trump administration was running USPS like a business. Also, there are many articles in which if we read beyond headlines, we would find comments from opponents of Trump that Trump administration sabotaging USPS. This is merely both-side-ism at work. To learn the truth, one needs to already distrust Trump and disregard their statements.

Then, all of a sudden Trump administration said that they would suspend/revert the changes. The mainstream media all rushed to report the statements, even though they were lies. There were no reporting of similar scale once the lies were uncovered. This is also the reason why Bill Barr was able to destroy Mueller's investigation - by first lying that there was no wrongdoings to gain enormous coverage and then escape scrutiny when truth was uncovered due to subdue coverage. As I also said, the mainstream media knew that Trump administration lies consistently. They should really ignore what they said and simply report what they do and don't do.

In summary, the mainstream media are really poor in conveying the big picture because Trump administration successfully hacks them and because they are unable to adapt to this adversary.

[treis]

>. I will give you an example. The way USPS is undermined is nothing but sabotage.

The post office was not sabotaged. They're foundering because mail volume has dropped to half its peak and they haven't been able to downsize their operations fast enough to keep making money.

The media and the Democrats spent the last year chasing this wild conspiracy theory about the USPS throwing the election for Trump. It never ever made any sense and, indeed, there's no evidence that mail in ballots were tampered with on any large scale.