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Turn on your favorite cable news channel at any point during the day or night, and you will be confronted with anchors speaking in serious tones about what Donald Trump has done today.
The year is 2025, yet the mainstream media is acting like it is 2017-2020 all over again.
Not all coverage has been the same. Anchors like Nicolle Wallace and Lawrence O’Donnell at MSNBC have gone the extra mile to focus on Trump’s actions and provide much-needed context.
The biggest element of the coverage that O’Donnell and Wallace have provided is that it is calm, measured, and most definitely not trying to scare viewers into watching the coverage.
CNN has shaken up its entire lineup and, in a bid to win the favor of Trump, has killed Jim Acosta’s highly rated weekday morning show to hand that timeslot over to Republican Wolf Blitzer. CNN made their intention to bury Acosta clear by offering him the midnight-2 am Eastern time slot on weeknights.
Acosta’s show has not been the same since Warner Brothers/Discovery bought the network and put a muzzle on his commentary.
MSNBC, which is banking on the nightly return to Rachel Maddow for Trump’s first 100 days to boost ratings has fallen to third place among the cable networks and could not break 1 million viewers for the Maddow-led coverage of Trump’s inauguration.
The network has gone all Trump, which appears to be the opposite of what many of its viewers seek.
The coverage of the Democratic response to Trump has been scant. The corporate outlets have self-censored as it is difficult to find much criticism of Trump even after he took actions during his first week that were both unconstitutional and illegal.
The mainstream media made their playbook clear. They wanted Joe Biden out of office because they thought the return of Trump would send ratings and hit counts skyrocketing.
The media failed to realize that, with few exceptions, sequels are never as good as the originals.
Americans have seen this show before. There is no novelty to a convicted felon doing illegal things.
There seems to be a general sense that many Americans are waiting Trump out, and they will be engaged in the political process in 2026, and definitely by 2028, when Democrats will have a fresh face as the leader of their party.
The coverage of the first week of Trump’s second presidency has mostly been an embarrassment. There is no attempt to hold Trump accountable. The “free press” seems quite content to act as Trump’s stenographers.
The more viewers tune out and turn off, the sooner the corporate press will get the message that this is not what many Americans want.
How do you think the media has handled Trump’s first week? Share your opinion in the comments below.