A White House Message to the Public: Help Us Expose Media Bias

A president striking back at his press critics in a rather populist manner.

The Donald Trump White House is stepping up its simmering war on the media bias against it – and it has chosen its own website as the battleground. Is it a rogue administration attempting to diminish the freedom of the press? Or is this a project aimed at exposing dishonest media? Democrats and others on the left would probably argue it’s the former, but there are no consequences, legal or otherwise, for either the publications or the journalists who continue to criticize the president and his agenda. It’s more like a trial in the court of public opinion – and now, the White House is looking for the public’s input.

Most of what is variously described as the “mainstream media,” the “legacy media,” or the “establishment media” has, for decades, harbored a preference for left-wing political ideology. Disputing this observation would require a great deal of selective recall. But once Donald Trump took the political stage, media bias became much more evident.

Media Bias Unhidden

Indeed, some of Trump’s media critics have openly posited that such an offensive and extreme political figure is undeserving of fairness and that it is the duty of journalists to disregard notions of balanced reporting to avoid endowing Trump with any mantle of decency – something of which, in their eyes, he is completely undeserving.

The White House website now has a Media Bias Portal – a “wall of shame,” as Liberty Nation’s Michele White described it. These web pages feature a selection of political reports and news stories that the administration claims are deceptive in one way or another. At the top of the main page: “Misleading. Biased. Exposed.”

For each featured story and report, the White House provides the outlet, the reporter(s) who wrote the article, and the White House’s claim against the offending report. It also lists the “offense,” the truth, key points, and sources. So, visitors to this section of the site can watch and/or read for themselves the media story at the center of the dispute and other related articles and video clips.

On Dec. 3, an additional feature was added, a “Media Bias Offender Tip Line,” allowing members of the public to submit articles they believe are misleading or deceptive. “The White House recently launched a Media Bias Portal as a service to truth and transparency,” a blurb on the site reads. “Its purpose is to combat the baseless lies, purposely omitted context, and outright left-wing lunacy of the Fake News Media — a tall task that demands the help of everyone who believes in facts and accuracy over Fake News.”

Censorship Versus Exposure

The contrast between this tactic and the Biden administration’s approach to unfavorable media coverage is worth noting. It has now been well established that the previous administration sought to actively suppress media reports – and even opinions – of which it disapproved. Social media companies were put under considerable pressure to restrict certain user accounts and limit the reach of some articles and reports that contradicted the official administration message or agenda.

The Trump administration’s approach at least does not involve any active censorship. It merely highlights and refutes those media reports it believes are deliberately slanted against it.

Thomas Jefferson would probably have loved the idea. Although he was a vocal advocate of press freedom, as president, he had a contentious relationship with the newspapers of the day.

Jefferson is quoted as saying, “Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe,” and, “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Yet, he is also recorded as saying, “the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.”

That last quote seems very much in line with President Trump’s rhetoric on the subject of media bias today: The press – or, the media, as it is known in our age that has moved so far beyond Johannes Gutenberg’s invention – loses its power, influence, and credibility when it gives up the pursuit of truth in favor of promoting an agenda.