How the media covered Trump’s 2024 announcement tainted with misinformation

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New York
CNN Business

Donald Trump made it official on Tuesday night, declaring his 2024 candidacy – forcing news outlets to wonder how to cover the campaign of a twice-impeached president who instigated an attack on the US Capitol after misleading his followers supporters with misinformation about the American electoral system.

The three major broadcast networks, unsurprisingly, ignored Trump and did not interrupt normal programming to air the speech.

But the situation was different on cable. While MSNBC decided not to broadcast the speech live, Fox News and CNN both aired large portions of Trump’s rather lighthearted and misinformation-laden ad. Newsmax aired it in full.

CNN cut the Palm Beach show after about 25 minutes, turning to a panel of analysts as well as network fact-checker Daniel Dale, who reversed his “extremely incorrect” statements. Alyssa Farah Griffin, Trump’s former communications director turned CNN analyst, pointed out that the speech included “outright lies” and that Trump “delved into conspiracy theories” that she “didn’t even have.” not seen in the dark corners of the internet”. .”

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It was a very different scene on Fox News where Trump propagandist Sean Hannity cut the speech off after about 40 minutes. Hannity, whose show hyped Trump’s announcement throughout the event in the chyron, turned to pro-Trump commentators Pete Hegseth and Mike Huckabee for analysis. “Nothing like the original,” Hegseth said, surprising no one with a comment praising Trump.

Fox News eventually returned to carry much of what was left of Trump’s speech, perhaps indicating that while certain arms of Rupert Murdoch’s media machine could beat Trump, his most powerful spokesperson is still hesitant to do so. with force.

Also noteworthy is how print and digital media covered the speech. Here are some ledes and highlights from the web:

► La WaPo: “Donald Trump, the twice-impeached former president who refused to concede defeat and inspired a failed attempt to nullify the 2020 election culminating in a deadly attack on the Capitol, officially declared Tuesday evening that he was running to take over the White House in 2024.”

► The NYT: “Donald J. Trump, whose historically divisive presidency has shaken the pillars of the country’s democratic institutions, declared Tuesday evening his intention to run for the White House again in 2024, ignoring calls from Republicans who warn that his Continued influence over the party is largely responsible for its weaker-than-expected performance in the midterm elections.

► NewsMax: “Former President Donald Trump, avoiding establishment calls to wait and relentless efforts by Democrats to shut him down, officially declared his 2024 presidential campaign Tuesday night.”

► The editorial board of the National Review published a piece simply titled “No”.

Of course, as the Drudge Report noted on its front page Tuesday night, there are still 721 days until the election. Suffice to say that many things can change. But how news outlets approached the speech is probably a good general barometer of what audiences can expect in the future.

There is also the question of how Trump will deal with the press. During his speech on Tuesday evening, he adopted a lighter tone, nudging the media while refraining from doing so in the harsh terms that defined his relationship with news outlets at the end of his stay at the House. White. Instead, Trump joked that he “wouldn’t use the term ‘fake media'” because he wanted the event to remain “elegant.”

We’ll see how long it lasts.

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