[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.