A prominent media critic has charged that the press covering the historic U.S.-North Korea summit this week in Singapore played dead for President Trump, lacking the will to challenge claims that the meeting produced concrete achievements.
Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan wrote Wednesday that despite modest efforts to put the summit in context, in the end “the event was a triumph of Trumpian statecraft.”
From the words to the images she found that the media acted as cheerleader. “The media played its accustomed role,” she wrote.
Sullivan had hoped for more reporting on Kim Jong Un’s “history of terrible human rights offenses,” and the weak language of the summit agreement.
[Related: Jim Acosta: The world would have thought less of us if we didn’t shout questions at Kim Jong Un]
She noted that CBS News anchor Jeff Glor did focus on one North Korean family’s plight under Kim. Then she wrote, “Nice try — but didn’t stand a chance against the main emphasis of the broadcast: the summit itself in its glitzy setting awash in top-name journalists often reduced to interviewing one another.”
Sullivan added, “the mainstream media seems to simply lack the tools — or possibly the will — to get that kind of dissent across.”
Another Post story drew attention to how Trump tried to stage his press conference, and it highlighted two reporters from conservative outlets even offered a “congratulations” to Trump before asking their questions.
Other more conservative media critics, and the president, feel that the press has been overwhelmingly critical of Trump.
They also feel that he is the victim of a double standard in the media, with Democrats getting special favorable treatment.
For example, far from the constant criticism Trump has faced, some 30 major reporters and media figures joined the Obama administration, including former Time correspondent Jay Carney and four from the Washington Post.
And during the Clinton administration, former magazine reporter Nina Burleigh said she would have sex with the president “just to thank him for keeping abortion legal.”
